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Congcong Sun, Yongming Chen, Aifang Ma, Pan Wang, Yingying Song, Jiaxin Pan, Tingting Zhao, Zhipeng Tu, Xiangxiu Liang, Xiaodan Wang, Jun Fan, Guozhi Bi, Xiangzong Meng, Daolong Dou, Guangyuan Xu, The kinase CPK5 phosphorylates MICRORCHIDIA1 to promote broad-spectrum disease resistance, The Plant Cell, Volume 37, Issue 3, March 2025, koaf051, https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koaf051
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Abstract
In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), MICRORCHIDIA 1 (MORC1), a member of the MORC family of evolutionarily conserved GHKL-type ATPases, plays important roles in multiple layers of plant immunity. However, the molecular mechanism by which MORC1 regulates plant immunity remains obscure. Here, we report that the pathogen-responsive kinase CALCIUM-DEPENDENT PROTEIN KINASE 5 (CPK5) directly interacts with and phosphorylates MORC1, thereby promoting its stability and nuclear translocation. In the nucleus, MORC1 associates with the NONEXPRESSOR OF PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENES 1 (NPR1)–TGACG-BINDING FACTOR (TGA) transcriptional complex to upregulate defense-responsive genes and promote plant resistance against several pathogens, such as the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 and fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea. Therefore, this study uncovers a MORC1-mediated immune signaling pathway, in which the CPK5–MORC1–NPR1–TGA module transduces Ca2+ signals, leading to the upregulation of defense genes involved in plant immunity.