An expanded transcriptome for early haustorium development in Cuscuta campestris

Follow-up experiment to PRJNA666991. Distal portions of Cuscuta campestris shoots were attached to the petioles of individuals (5- to 6- week-old) of either the cultivated tomato Solanum lycopersicum cv. M82 or its wild relative Solanum pennellii (LA0716) as closely related hosts. C. campestris can successfully propagate on both species; however, it induces a defence reaction in the cultivated tomato, which can occasionally fend off the parasite. Infection sites, consisting of individual coils and underlying host tissues, were sectioned using razor blades and separately frozen in liquid nitrogen. Cross-sectioned non-infective C. campestris shoots were further mixed with uninfected S. lycopersicum or S. pennellii petioles to create chimeric reference samples and frozen as well. Individual samples containing both parasite and host tissues were assigned to one of the stages of haustorium development (non-infective, swelling, attaching, or penetrating) by reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) using the marker gene sets (see https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.136282). Twelve samples (triplicates of the (non-)infective tissue types) from both pathosystems were selected for mRNA sequencing.