Comprehensive genomic characterisation of the NAC transcription factor family and its response to drought stress in .

The NAC transcription factor family enhances plant adaptation to environmental challenges by participating in signalling pathways triggered by abiotic stressors and hormonal cues. We identified 69 genes in the genome and renamed them according to their chromosomal distribution. These EuNAC proteins were clustered into 13 sub-families and distributed on 16 chromosomes and 2 scaffolds. The gene structures suggested that the number of exons varied from two to eight among these , with a multitude of them containing three exons. Duplicated events resulted in a large gene family; 12 and four pairs of were the result of segmental and tandem duplicates, respectively. The drought-stress response pattern of 12 putative was observed under drought treatment, revealing that these could play crucial roles in mitigating the effects of drought stress responses and serve as promising candidate genes for genetic engineering aimed at enhancing the drought stress tolerance of . This study provides insight into the evolution, diversity, and characterisation of genes in and will be helpful for future characterisation of putative associated with water deficit.