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It has been shown that the parasitic plant dodder (Cuscuta pentagona) establishes a continuous vascular system through which water and nutrients are drawn. Along with solutes, viruses and proteins, mRNA transcripts are transported from the host to the parasite. The path of the transcripts and their stability in the parasite have yet to be revealed.

To discover the route of mRNA transportation, the in situ reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) technique was used to locally amplify host transcript within parasitic tissue. The stability of host mRNA molecules was also checked by monitoring specific transcripts along the growing dodder thread.

Four mRNAs, α and β subunits of PYROPHOSPHATE (PPi)‐DEPENDENT PHOSPHOFRUCTOKINASE (LePFP), the small subunit of ribulose‐1,5‐bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO), and GIBBERELLIC ACID INSENSITIVE (LeGAI), were …