Parasitic plants

The Melnyk group works with parasitic plants, devastating pathogens that attach to host plants to withdraw nutrients and reduce yields. Interestingly, parasitic plants can also form vascular connections to their hosts, which are often completely unrelated plants. Thus, there is something unique about how parasitic plants can overcome recognition barriers. We are studying parasitic plants to get a better idea how they fuse tissues and form vascular connections to unrelated plants.