*2.3. Gene Structures, Conserved Motifs and Protein Functional Network Analysis*

The exon and intron structures were illustrated using the Gene Structure Display Server (GSDS, http://gsds.cbi.pku.edu.cn accessed on 6 June 2021) [26] by aligning the predicted cDNA sequences with their corresponding genomic DNA sequences. The conserved motifs in the encoded proteins were analyzed using the MEME online program (http://meme.sdsc.edu, v4.9.0, accessed on 6 June 2021) [27]. MEME was run locally with the following parameters: number of repetitions = any, maximum number of motifs = 20 and optimum motif width = 6–100 residues for *Hsf*, *sHsp*, *Hsp60*, *Hsp70* and *Hsp100*. The STRING protein interaction database (http://string-db.org/, accessed on 6 June 2021) was used to analyze the interaction networks of Hsf and Hsp proteins in the highly specific protein and parameter selection model plant species *Arabidopsis thaliana*.
