Genome wide analysis of the heavy-metal-associated (HMA) gene family in tomato and expression profiles under different stresses

The heavy-metal-associated (HMA) family plays a major role in the transportation of metals. Despite having the genome sequence of the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), the HMA gene family has not been studied yet. In this study, we identified 48 HMA genes and categorized them into Cu/Ag P1B-ATPase and Zn/Co/Cd/Pb P1BATPase sub-families according to their phylogenic relationship with Arabidopsis and rice. The SlHMA genes were distributed throughout the 12 chromosomes. Analysis of gene structure, chromosomal position, and synteny, revealed that segmental duplications bestowed their evolution. The high numbers of stress-related cis-elements were found to be present in the putative promoter regions indicate the involvement of SlHMAs in stress modulation pathways. RNA-seq data revealed that SlHMAs had divergent expression in different tissues and…