Updated project metadata.
Brown planthopper (BPH) is the most notorious insect pest to rice. Drought is the most commonly occurring global adversity. BPH infestation caused adaxially-rolled leaves and shrunk bulliform cells similar to drought. The bulliform-cell characteristic gene, ACL1, negatively regulated BPH resistance and drought tolerance, with decreased cuticular wax in ACL1-D, which resulted in quicker water losing. ACL1 was specifically expressed in epidermis. TurboID system and various biochemical assays revealed that ACL1 interacted with the epidermal-characteristic HD-Zip IV ROCs. ROC4 and ROC5 positively regulated BPH resistance and drought tolerance through modulating cuticular wax and bulliform cells respectively. Overexpression of ROC4 and ROC5 both rescued ACL1-D in various related phenotypes simultaneously. Moreover, ACL1 competed with ROC4 and ROC5 in homo-dimerization and hetero-dimerization. Altogether, we illustrated that ACL1-ROCs complex synergistically mediate drought tolerance and BPH resistance through regulating cuticular wax and bulliform cells in rice, a new mechanism which might facilitate BPH resistance breeding.