PRETTY LITTLE THIEF: The parasitic plant Lophophytum mirabile grows in the Amazon forest, sucking its nutrients (and some mitochondrial DNA) from the roots of other plants.HECTOR SATO
The mitochondrial genomes of land plants are big, bizarre, and often downright bewildering. Take, for instance, the massive, multichromosomal mitochondrial DNA of the sand catchfly (Silene conica), which, at 11.3 million bases, is larger than many bacterial genomes; or that of spikemoss (Selaginella moellendorffii), with its thousands of RNA editing sites and complete lack of genes for tRNAs. The peculiarities of plant mitochondrial genetics are multifarious enough to make it hard for any one to stand out—that is, until recently, when María Virginia Sanchez-Puerta of Argentina’s National University of Cuyo and colleagues sequenced the Lophophytum mirabile mitochondrial genome (New Phytol, doi:10.1111/nph.14361, 2016).
Lophophytum is a holoparasitic plant, meaning that it has forsaken photosynthesis and is completely reliant on its various hosts for survival. In canopy-darkened ...
