PIXABAY, TAPPANCSEuropean mistletoe doesn’t have a key enzyme that breaks down sugar into usable energy, two research groups report today (May 3) in Current Biology. The teams also reveal how the parasitic plant, which grows on trees, works around that gap in its energy-generating machinery.
“This research is incredibly exciting,” graduate student Maureen Williams of Trinity College Dublin who was not involved in the studies, tells Gizmodo. “The evolution of parasitic lifestyles is one of the most fascinating stories of life on our planet, and these two papers, especially together, highlight the novel ways in which parasites adapt biochemically and genetically to out-compete their hosts—and other parasites.”
The enzyme the plant is missing is called Complex I. It is so central to breaking down sugar into usable energy that it’s found in the mitochondria of everything from jellyfish to people. Typically, mitochondria contain highly conserved protein complexes, including Complex I, which they use in a process called respiration to break down the sugar glucose into a molecule called ATP, which ...
