The Rubber Tree ( Heveae brasiliensis ) MLO Protein HbMLO12 Promotes Plant Susceptibility to Sustain Infection by a Powdery Mildew Fungus

Powdery mildew severely affects several important crops and cash plants. Disruption of ( ) genes elevates resistance against powdery mildew in several plants. However, whether rubber tree ( ) MLO proteins are linked to susceptibility remains unknown, owing to technical limitations in the genetic manipulation of this woody plant. A previous study showed that the MLO-like protein HbMLO12 demonstrates high amino acid sequence similarity with the known MLO protein AtMLO12. In this study, we investigated whether HbMLO12 regulates susceptibility to powdery mildew. leaves take up exogenously synthesized double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs), and foliar application of dsRNA homologous to gene specifically induces silencing in leaf tissues. Notably, silencing inhibited fungal infection and elevated the immune response during interaction with the rubber tree powdery mildew fungus. Furthermore, the heterologous expression of HbMLO12 suppressed bacterial flg22- and fungal chitin-induced immune responses and enhanced bacterial infection in . Our study provides evidence that HbMLO12 contributes to susceptibility to powdery mildew. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.