*4.10. Statistical Analysis*

All of the data were analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics v.20 software (https://www.ibm.com/ support/knowledgecenter/SSLVMB\_20.0.0/com.ibm.spss.statistics\_20.kc.doc/pv\_welcome.html). One-way ANOVA and Duncan's tests were used to compare the results. Differences between treatments were considered statistically significant at *p* < 0.05.

**Supplementary Materials:** Supplementary materials can be found at http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/19/9/ 2478/s1. Supplementary Sequence A1: Genomic information for cloned *MdSAPs*; Supplementary Sequence A2: Full-length amino acid sequences of 453 SAPs from 32 plant species; Supplementary Sequence A3: Sequence logo for the A20 domain in 26 *MdSAP* genes; Supplementary Sequence A4: Sequence logo for the AN1 domain in 28 *MdSAP* genes; Supplementary File B1: The IDs of SAP gene family members in various species; Supplementary File B2: The intron numbers and groups of SAP gene family members in various species; Supplementary File B3: Prediction of *cis*-acting elements in *MdSAP* promoters.

**Author Contributions:** F.M., K.M. and Q.D. collected the public dataset, performed bioinformatics analysis, and drafted the manuscript. D.D., S.Z., B.X., J.L., Q.W. and D.H. contributed to the bioinformatics analysis and preparation of all figures and tables. Q.D., D.D., C.L. (Changhai Liu), C.L. (Chao Li) and X.G. conducted the experiments. F.M. and Q.D. conceived this study and reviewed the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the State Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31330068), the earmarked fund for the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-27), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31401852 and 31701894), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M620474), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2452017064 and 2452016186).

**Acknowledgments:** The authors are grateful to Priscilla Licht for help in revising our English composition.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
