Ion transport is crucial for salt tolerance in plants. Under salt stress, the high-affinity K⁺ transporter (HKT) family is mainly responsible for the long-distance transport of salt ions which help to reduce the deleterious effects of high concentrations of ions accumulated within plants. Kiwifruit is well known for its susceptibility to salt stress. Therefore, a current study was designed to decipher the molecular regulatory role of kiwifruit HKT members in the face of salt stress. The transcriptome data from Actinidia valvata revealed that salt stress significantly induced the expression of AvHKT1. A multiple sequence alignment analysis indicated that the AvHKT1 protein contains three conserved amino acid sites for the HKT family. According to subcellular localization analysis, the protein was primarily present in the cell membrane and nucleus. Additionally, we tested the AvHKT1 overexpression in ‘Hongyang’ kiwifruit, and the results showed that the transgenic lines exhibited less leaf damage and improved plant growth compared to the control plants. The transgenic lines displayed significantly higher SPAD and Fv/Fm values than the control plants. The MDA contents of transgenic lines were also lower than that of the control plants. Furthermore, the transgenic lines accumulated lower Na⁺ and K⁺ contents, proving this protein involvement in the transport of Na⁺ and K⁺ and classification as a type II HKT transporter. Further research showed that the peroxidase (POD) activity in the transgenic lines was significantly higher, indicating that the salt-induced overexpression of AvHKT1 also scavenged POD. The promoter of AvHKT1 contained phytohormone and abiotic stress-responsive cis-elements. In a nutshell, AvHKT1 improved kiwifruit tolerance to salinity by facilitating ion transport under salt stress conditions.

To comprehensively evaluate 212 tomato accessions and gain an in-depth understanding of their genetic background, 17 major agronomic traits were assessed, and whole-genome resequencing was performed on all materials. The results indicated that the genetic diversity of quantitative traits was abundant, with the genetic diversity index (H′) ranging from 0.79 to 2.03. In contrast, the genetic diversity of qualitative traits was relatively low, with the H′ falling between 0.363 and 0.936. The relationships between phenotypes were intricate and characterized by information redundancy. The top five principal components captured 69.014% of the phenotypic information. The F and D score-based comprehensive evaluation methods demonstrated strong consistency (r = 0.955 **). Among the 17 accessions ranked in the top 20 by both scores, 12 belonged to the large-fruit yellowish late-ripening type with distinct genetic backgrounds. These preliminary efforts not only provide an idea, a framework and a dataset for the integrated analysis of phenotypic evaluation, phenotypic clustering and population structure, but also lay a foundation for future inter-data network research, as well as potential material support for subsequent breeding efforts.