Genome landscape of the universal stress protein gene family in lettuce and expression profile in response to heat stress

Overall, this study provides an in-depth characterization of the lettuce USP family, integrating gene structure, phylogenetic relationships, cis-elements, synteny, conserved domain architecture, and gene expression analyses. Our findings suggest that LsUSPs may be involved in thermotolerance in lettuce, highlighting their potential as genetic resource for breeding heat-tolerance lettuce.