Sugarcane carries relatively larger family of CAMTA transcription factors, active against drought stress

As the highly demanding complex genome of the hybrid sugarcane cultivar became publicly available last year (2023), it opened avenues to further study this important crop at molecular level. We are interested in digging the multiple stress responsive transcription factors family, the Calmodulin-Binding Transcription Activator (CAMTA) of sugarcane. This manuscript presents a comprehensive study of ScCAMTA family based on the latest sugarcane genome sequence information. Within the 10 gb genome, through HMM model prepared from sorghum CAMTA common domains, we found 48 genes, 46 out of which carry all the CAMTA-associated domains including CG-1, TIG, IQ and Ank. The phylogenetic analysis clustered then into seven classes. Keeping sorghum as reference, we named them as ScCAMTA1 - ScCAMTA7, while each one representing a class having 5-7 copies such as ScCAMTA1A - ScCAMTA1E, present in each sub-genome (chromosome) within the hybrid sugarcane. In parallel to determining their physico-chemical attributes, gene structure, promoter sequences, protein domains, miRNA targets, protein interaction network, GO, genome collinearity, their expression pattern against drought was determined using the RNAseq data which flaunted that ScCAMTA7 is highly active under drought. This study furthers the insights into complex sugarcane genome and will assist in developing its drought-tolerant varieties.