Elijah Mbandi Mkala

Introduction Parasitic plants, representing c. 1% of angiosperms (Nickrent, 2020), have taken an evolutionary turn from autotrophy to heterotrophy, which entailed considerable genomic alterations in the nuclear as well as the organelle genomes. Holoparasitic plants, which completely lack photosynthetic activity, possess a highly reduced plastid genome (plastome) due to a widespread loss of genes involved in photosynthesis and housekeeping (Lyko & Wicke, 2021; Kim et al., 2023).

Abstract The nuclear genomes of parasitic plants have undergone unique evolutionary trajectories to adapt to the heterotrophic lifestyle. These adaptations often involve large genomic alterations, potentially driven by repetitive DNAs. Despite the recognized role of repetitive DNAs for shaping plant genomes, their contribution to parasitic plant genome evolution remains largely unexplored.