This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new genetic analysis tool developed by UF assistant professor of biology Liming Cai, Ph.D., has led to the discovery of the first known interaction between Amborella, a rare New Caledonian plant, and a parasitic plant called Hachettea. Cai and Rachel Cohen, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the biology department, made the discovery while developing a new method to identify horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the passing of genes between unrelated species, in plants.
The tool, HGTScanner, found alien DNA in existing samples of Amborella, which represents the oldest surviving branch of flowering plants and is a rare shrub native to New Caledonia. Cai said the fact that the interaction involved Amborella was enough to make the discovery notable because little is known about its life history despite its critical position in the evolutionary history of plants. But it also is the most significant finding that has come from her new horizontal gene transfer tool so far.
"The way people study ecological interactions, they would go to the field and then, either through observation or excavation, see who's interacting with whom," Cai said. "When such interaction is so intense, these different parties can sometimes even exchange their genetic materials, and this is how our tool can be handy. We use a different approach to characterize species interaction in nature, not through direct field observation, but through the kind of genetic material that is being exchanged by different organisms." Cai's discovery is part of a paper that was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
The interaction between Amborella and Hachettea was discovered while Cai and Cohen were testing their HGTScanner. Cai said that, as a botanist, she is interested in the evolution and ecology of interactions between parasites and their hosts. But since there previously were no tools that could help identify HGT and pinpoint the donor and receiver, she was motivated to develop her own tool.
While HGTScanner itself is new, anyone could have used the DNA samples that led to this finding. She said she used a public DNA database to test her tool and picked Amborella because horizontal gene transfer is well documented in the plant. They found the alien DNA where they expected to find it, verifying the method while identifying novel transfers from Hachettea.
Cohen said being able to make this discovery with HGTScanner can have the same impact as making observations in the field. But the new tool allowed them to make this finding while saving time, money and resources for future fieldwork. "In particular for parasitic plants, understanding who they're associated with, who they've associated with throughout their histories, can help us understand biodiversity at a greater scale," Cohen said, "and also maybe give us insight into who they might continue to parasitize and how that might work." Using HGTScanner, Cai and Cohen discovered the gene transfer went from Hachettea to Amborella, the opposite of typical host-parasite gene transfer.
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