Publication Date:
2010-05-29
Description:
Horizontal gene transfer has been postulated to occur between crops to co-occurring parasitic plants, but empirical evidence has been lacking. We present evidence that an HGT event moved a nuclear monocot gene into the genome of the eudicot parasite witchweed (Striga hermonthica), which infects many grass species in Africa. Analysis of expressed sequence tags revealed that the genome of S. hermonthica contains a nuclear gene that is widely conserved among grass species but is not found in other eudicots. Phylogenetically, this gene clusters with sorghum genes, the monocot host of the parasitic weed, suggesting that nuclear genes can be captured by parasitic weeds in nature.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Yoshida, Satoko -- Maruyama, Shinichiro -- Nozaki, Hisayoshi -- Shirasu, Ken -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 May 28;328(5982):1128. doi: 10.1126/science.1187145.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉RIKEN Plant Science Center, Tsurumi, Yokohama 230-0045, Japan.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20508124" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Base Sequence
;
Blotting, Southern
;
Cell Nucleus/genetics
;
Conserved Sequence
;
Crops, Agricultural/genetics
;
Expressed Sequence Tags
;
*Gene Transfer, Horizontal
;
Genome, Plant
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Phylogeny
;
Plant Proteins/genetics
;
Poaceae/*genetics
;
Sorghum/*genetics
;
Striga/*genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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