OsTOPBP1C orchestrates rice immunity through transcription-dependent functional switching

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

and the DNA damage response integrator OsSOG1, thereby sustaining the DNA repair function of OsTOPBP1C and counteracting immune responses. Promoter activity assays and transcriptomic analyses revealed that OsTOPBP1C fine-tunes rice immunity through a transcription-dependent mechanism. Mechanistically, OsTOPBP1C plays two roles in rice immunity: during infection, reduced transcription shifts its function toward DNA repair, thereby promoting OsSOG1-mediated susceptibility; conversely, high levels of OsTOPBP1C transcription enable it to potentiate salicylic acid-mediated defenses by suppressing the transcription of OsSAH3 activated by OsMYC2. Our findings reveal a pathogen strategy for rewiring host nuclear processes and demonstrate how host gene transcription shapes immune plasticity, providing insight into the molecular choreography of host-pathogen interactions.