Plants in the botanical family Theaceae are endangered because of habitat destruction and efforts are underway to use omics technologies to identify and classify germplasm in order to create seed repositories for species propagation. This effort provides a framework for the systematic evaluation of chemical differences among botantically defined species and varieties that may have agronomic and biomedical applications. Using a double-blinded design, fourteen Camellia varieties representing two species, six tea types, and four geographic regions were evaluated. Unique metabolomic profiles identified agronomic traits such as tea type and magnitude of bioactivity using inhibition of cancer cell growth in culture as an endpoint. The distinctiveness of the metabolomic profile of each botanical variety supports the use of this analytical approach to identify species and varieties that merit evaluation for biomedically relevant activity and to screen for agronomic traits related to tea quality.

Impact of botanical diversity within Theacae species on the metabolomic profile and biomedical activity

256th National Meeting (2018)

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