摘要Drought stress severely limits rice productivity.Understanding of drought-response mechanisms in rice is essential for developing climate-resilient varieties.While cysteine-rich receptor-like kinases(CRKs)are pri-marily implicated in plant development and immunity,their role in drought response remains poorly under-stood.In this study,we identified a CRK,OsCRK14,as a key positive regulator of drought resistance in rice.We demonstrated that plasma membrane-localized OsCRK14 phosphorylates the receptor-like cyto-plasmic kinase OsRLCK57 under drought stress,leading to activate a mitogen-activated protein kinase(MAPK)cascade(OsMKKK10-OsMKK4-OsMPK6).Activated OsMPK6 directly phosphorylates the abscisic acid-responsive transcription factor OsbZIP66 at conserved Serine-Proline/Threonine-Proline motifs,enhancing its stability and promoting drought-responsive gene expression.Furthermore,we found that natural variations in the OsCRK14 promoter influence its transcript levels due to the altered OsMYB72 bind-ing affinities,which are correlated with drought-resistance differences among rice varieties.Collectively,our study discovers a novel CRK-RLCK-MAPK-bZIP signaling pathway that connects membrane signal sensing to transcriptional regulation in drought response,providing both mechanistic insights and genetic resources for breeding drought-resistant rice.