Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the calmodulin-binding transcription activator (CAMTA) family genes in tea plant

Background As a type of calmodulin binding protein, CAMTAs are widely involved in vegetative and reproductive processes as well as various hormonal and stress responses in plants. To study the functions of CAMTA genes in tea plants, we investigated bioinformatics analysis and performed qRT-PCR analysis of the CAMTA gene family by using the genomes of 'ShuChaZao' tea plant cultivar. Results In this study, 6 CsCAMTAs were identified from tea plant genome. Bioinformatics analysis results showed that all CsCAMTAs contained six highly conserved functional domains. Tissue-specific analysis results found that CsCAMTAs played great roles in mediating tea plant aging and flowering periods. Under hormone and abiotic stress conditions, most CsCAMTAs were upregulated at different time points under different treatment conditions. In addition, the expression levels of CsCAMTA1/3/4/6 were higher in cold-resistant cultivar 'LongJing43' than in the cold-susceptible cultivar 'DaMianBai' at cold acclimation stage, while CsCAMTA2/5 showed higher expression levels in 'DaMianBai' than in 'LongJing43' during entire cold acclimation periods. Conclusions In brief, the present results revealed that CsCAMTAs played great roles in tea plant growth, development and stress responses, which laid the foundation for deeply exploring their molecular regulation mechanisms.