RAFFLESIA & TETRASTIGMA VINE

PARASITISM
 Untangling a vine and its
parasite: Host specificity of
Philippine Rafflesia (Rafflesiaceae)
Pelser, P.B., Barcelona, J.F., & Nickrent, D.L.
INTRODUCTION
• endo-holoparasite

• study about the co-

evolution with their host
(Tetrastigma)
• cospeciation & host
switching
• 2nd study: shared DNA
regions
• Objectives: host specificity
and host preference
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
• Tissue sampling of hosts (Tetrastigma vines)
• 234 host plants were collected (91 with no
infection)
• DNA sequencing- to identify Introns of plastid
genome
• Phylogenetic analyses
 RESULTS
6 out of 8 7 out of 11
Rafflesia species parasitize
Tetrastigma lineages
only a single Tetrastigma
identified as host
lineage
• T papillosum & T scariosum were never found to be
parasitized
• T harmandii only parasitizes R speciosa

DISCUSSION
Parasitic plants show large differences in host
specificity
 Horizontal transfer of expressed
genes in a parasitic flowering plant
Xi, Z., Bradley, R.L., Wurdack, K.J., Wong,
K.M., Sugumaran, M., Bomblies, K., Rest,
J.S., & Davis, C.C.
INTRODUCTION
• horizontal gene
transfer (HGT)
• host-to-parasite gene
transfer
• Comparison of
transciptomic data
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
• Molecular techniques and next-generation
sequencing
• RNA, gDNA, cDNA
• Orthology assignment and phylogenomic
analyses
• Characterization
RESULTS
• Translocation in the phloem
• High degree of sequence
divergence from HGT
transcripts
• Series of episodic HGT
events

DISCUSSION
The observed Rafflesia transcripts show evidence that
they originated via HGT from their obligate hosts,
Tetrastigma.
 REFERENCES
• Pelser, P.B., Barcelona, J.F., & Nickrent, D.L. (2012).
Horizontal transfer of expressed genes in a parasitic
flowering plant. BMC Genomics. 13:227

• Xi, Z., Bradley, R.L., Wurdack, K.J., Wong, K.M.,

Sugumaran, M., Bomblies, K., Rest, J.S., & Davis,
C.C. (2016). Untangling a vine and its parasite: Host
specificity of Philippine Rafflesia (Rafflesiaceae).
Taxon.