Genome-scale transfer of mitochondrial DNA from legume hosts to the holoparasite Lophophytum mirabile (Balanophoraceae).

Angiosperm mitochondrial horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has been widely reported during the past decades. With a few exceptions, foreign sequences are mitochondrial genes or intronic regions from other plants, indicating that HGT has played a major role in shaping mitochondrial genome evolution. Host-parasite relationships are a valuable system to study this phenomenon due to the high frequency of HGT.