| Summary: | Stress-associated proteins (SAPs) are a class of zinc finger proteins that confer tolerance to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses in diverse plant species. However, in cucumber (<i>Cucumis sativus</i> L.), very little is known about the roles of <i>SAP</i> gene family members in regulating plant growth, development, and stress responses. In this study, a total of 12 <i>SAP</i> genes (named as <i>CsSAP1-CsSAP12</i>) were identified in the cucumber genome, which were unevenly distributed on six chromosomes. Gene duplication analysis detected one tandem duplication and two segmental duplication events. Phylogenetic analysis of SAP proteins from cucumber and other plants suggested that they could be divided into seven groups (sub-families), and proteins in the same group generally had the same arrangement of AN1 (ZnF-AN1) and A20 (ZnF-A20) domains. Most of the <i>CsSAP</i> genes were intronless and harbored a number of stress- and hormone-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. Tissue expression analysis showed that the <i>CsSAP</i> genes had a broad spectrum of expression in different tissues, and some of them displayed remarkable alteration in expression during fruit development. RT-qPCR results indicated that all the selected <i>CsSAP</i> genes displayed transcriptional responses to cold, drought, and salt stresses. These results enable the first comprehensive description of the <i>SAP</i> gene family in cucumber and lay a solid foundation for future research on the biological functions of <i>CsSAP</i> genes.
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