Ammonium transporter 1 (AMT1) gene family in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.): Bioinformatics, physiological and expression analyses under drought and salt stresses.

Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient for plants, and mainly taken from the soil as ammonium (NH+4). It is particularly transported into the plants by AMmonium Transporters (AMTs), which are plasma membrane proteins. In the present study, genome-wide identification, physiological and expression analyses of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) ammonium transporters 1 (SlAMT1) genes under drought and salt stresses were performed. Sequence analyses revealed the presence of variations in SlAMT1 s at nucleotide and protein levels. While all the SlAMT1s comprise an ammonium transporter domain (PF00909), the numbers of their transmembrane helices were found to be diverse. Digital expression analyses proved that SlAMT1–3 gene had different expression patterns compared to the others, suggesting its functional diversities. The expression analyses revealed that SlAMT1 genes were 0.16 and 5.94 -fold down-regulated under drought and salt stresses, respectively. The results suggested that expression of SlAMT1 genes were adversely affected by abiotic stress conditions. • The results of this study indicated there are genetic variations and divergences among SlAMT1 genes and proteins. • The expression profiles of SlAMT1 genes showed they were differently expressed under drought and salinity stresses. • Tomato-Arabidopsis separation was clearly observed for AMT1 proteins in the phylogenetic tree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]