Solute flux into parasitic plants

Abstract

Parasitic plants form intimate contacts with host tissue in order to gain access to host solutes. There are a variety of cell types within the host which parasitic plants could access to extract solutes. Depending on the degree to which the parasite has embraced the parasitic lifestyle, the extent of solute flux and the pathways used to transfer solutes from host to parasite will vary. To date, a variety of experimental approaches argue for diversity in the mechanisms and the routes by which parasites accumulate host solutes. Contact between host and parasite ranges from direct lumen-to-lumen links between host and parasite xylem and continuity between the sieve elements of host and parasite, to the involvement of transfer cells between host and parasite. Progress has been slow since Solms-Laubach distinguished types of parasitic plants that fed from host phloem or xylem in 1867, but advances in clearly delineating the pathways that link host and parasite should now be possible using fluorescent proteins expressed and restricted to particular cell types of the host. This will initially necessitate using Arabidopsis, but should allow the types of connection, i.e. symplasmic or apoplasmic, to be determined and then the identification of parasite transporters responsible for solute flux.