Arabidopsis thaliana susceptibility to Orobanche spp.

Parasitic plants, including the root holoparasites Orobanche spp., cause de vastating damage to crops worldwide. Arabidopsis thaliana is widely used as an amenable model plant system to study host-pathogen interactions. Unders tanding the molecular basis involved in host-parasite interactions will pro vide practical tools for the detection of genes responsible for incompatibi lity and resistance responses. In preliminary petri dish experiments, A. th aliana induced seed germination of O. aegyptiaca, O. minor, and O. ramosa a t the rate of 87, 72, and 67% of maximum seed germination, respectively. Ar abidopsis thaliana induction of O. crenata and O. cumana seeds was negligib le (less than 2% of maximum germination). In additional polyethylene bag st udies, A. thaliana was parasitized by O. aegyptiaca, O. ramosa, and O. mino r resulting in 12, 5, and 2 parasites per host plant, respectively. The res ults facilitate the use of A. thaliana in host-parasitic plant interaction research.