Editing strigolactone hormone receptor for robust antiviral silencing in rice

  • Cell. 2026 Apr 2;189(7):2054-2072.e25. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.01.013.
Guoyi Yang  1 ,  Ming Wu  1 ,  Shuai Zhang  1 ,  Yucen Huang  2 ,  Yixiao Liu  3 ,  Xiyuan Yu  1 ,  Jiayang Hu  1 ,  Le Mi  1 ,  Peng Gan  1 ,  Yuansheng Wu  1 ,  Jing Zou  1 ,  Baogang Zhang  1 ,  Qun Hu  1 ,  Jie Hu  1 ,  Ruifeng Yao  4 ,  Bojian Zhong  5 ,  Xianbo Huang  1 ,  Huiting Xie  6 ,  Yinghua Ji  7 ,  Yi Li  1 ,  Jie Zhang  8 ,  Liming Yan  9 ,  Shou-Wei Ding  10 ,  Shanshan Zhao  11 ,  Jianguo Wu  12
Affiliations
  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Agriculture and Forestry Biosecurity, Center for Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
  • 2. State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Life Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China.
  • 3. State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
  • 4. State Key Laboratory of Chemo and Biosensing, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics and Developmental Regulation, Hunan Research Center of the Basic Discipline for Cell Signaling, College of Biology, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.
  • 5. College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
  • 6. Institute of Plant Protection, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning 530007, China.
  • 7. Institute of Plant Protection, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 221000, China.
  • 8. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
  • 9. State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Key Laboratory of Neuroregeneration of Jiangsu, Ministry of Education, Co-Innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 10. Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Center for Plant Cell Biology, Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 11. State Key Laboratory of Agriculture and Forestry Biosecurity, Center for Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 12. State Key Laboratory of Agriculture and Forestry Biosecurity, Center for Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 41742412 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.01.013
Abstract

The small interfering RNA (siRNA) pathway directs broad-spectrum Antiviral defense through RNA silencing so that virulent Infection requires efficient suppression of the defense mechanism. Here, we show that strigolactone (SL) hormone signaling promotes Antiviral silencing in rice Plants by transcriptional activation of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 1 (RDR1) and RDR6. We demonstrate that protein P3 of the rice grassy stunt virus (RGSV) blocks SL signaling by directly sequestering the receptor DWARF14 from DWARF3. Structural and functional analyses of the P3-DWARF14 complex reveal that the aspartic acid at position 102 (D102) of DWARF14 is essential for the P3 interaction but not for SL perception. Notably, a single D102N substitution of DWARF14, introduced into two rice cultivars by cytosine base editing (CBE) confers resistance against RGSV by blocking viral suppression of SL signaling-dependent Antiviral silencing. Our findings establish a transgene-free strategy for engineering disease resistance by precise genome editing of the SL receptor to escape pathogen suppression of the endogenous defense pathway.

Keywords
DWARF14; RNA silencing; plant antiviral immunity; strigolactones.
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