Ethylene signaling mediates host invasion by parasitic plants

Parasitic plants form a specialized organ, a haustorium, to invade host tissues and acquire water and nutrients. To understand the molecular mechanism of haustorium development, we performed a forward genetics screening to isolate mutants exhibiting haustorial defects in the model parasitic plant Phtheirospermum japonicum. We isolated two mutants that show prolonged and sometimes aberrant meristematic activity in the haustorium apex, resulting in severe defects on host invasion. Whole genome sequencing revealed that the two mutants respectively have point mutations in homologs of ETHYLENE RECEPTOR 1 (ETR1) and ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE 2 (EIN2), signaling components in response to the gaseous phytohormone ethylene. Application of the ethylene signaling inhibitors also caused similar haustorial defects, indicating that ethylene signaling regulates cell proliferation and differentiation of parasite cells. Importantly, genetic disruption of host ethylene production also perturbs parasite invasion. We propose that parasitic plants utilize ethylene as a signal to invade host roots.This dataset contains whole genome assembly (PjScaffold_ver1.fasta), predicted transcripts (Pj.v1.1_transcripts.fasta) and translated amino acid (Pj.v1.1_proteins.fasta) sequences in fasta format with gff3 annotation file (PjScaffold.v1.1.gff). Funding provided by: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and TechnologyCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001700Award Number: 17K1542, 22128001, 15H01246, 25711019, 18H02464, 18H04838, 15H05959, 17H06172Funding provided by: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science LondonCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000646Award Number: 16H06279,Funding provided by: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science LondonCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000646Award Number: 16H06279Funding provided by: Japan Science and Technology AgencyCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002241Award Number: JPMJPR194DWhole genome sequence of a facultative parasitic plant Phtheirospermum japonicum (ecotype Okayama) was analysed by illumina paired-end and mate-pair sequencing, together with PacBio long read sequencing. The draft genome was assembly using allpaths-lg and PBJelly, and annotated using MakerP pipeline using P. japonicum transcriptome