Extensive inter-plant protein transfer between Cuscuta parasites and their host plants

Abstract Cuscuta species (dodders) are holoparasites that totally rely on host plants to survive. Although various mobile proteins have been identified to travel within a plant, whether and to what extent protein transfer between Cuscuta and host plants remain unclear. We found that hundreds to more than 1500 proteins were transferred between Cuscuta and the host plants Arabidopsis and soybean, and hundreds of inter-plant mobile proteins were even detected in the seeds of Cuscuta and the host soybean. Different hosts bridge-connected by dodder were also found to exchange hundreds of proteins. Quantitatively, the mobile proteins represent a few to more than 10% of the proteomes of the foreign plants. Using Arabidopsis plants expressing different reporter proteins, we show that these reporter proteins could travel between plants, and importantly, retained their activity in the foreign plants. Comparison between the inter-plant mobile proteins and mRNAs indicated that the majority of the mobile proteins were not de novo synthesized from the translocated mRNAs, but bona fide mobile proteins. We propose that large-scale inter-plant protein translocation may play an important role in the interactions between host plants and dodder and even among the dodder bridge connected hosts.