The formation of plant metabolites is biochemical and physiological features of plants in response to environment during the evolutionary process. These metabolites contribute to the defense of plants against environmental stresses. On the other hand, they can be regarded as important quality components in crops. The idea of utilization of stress-response to improve the natural quality components of plants has recently attracted increased levels of interest. Tea (Camellia sinensis) is the most popular beverage next to water throughout the world. Aroma is an important factor affecting the character and quality of tea. Aroma formation in tea leaves can result from the defense responses of tea leaves against the various stresses during preharvest process (i.e. tea growth process) and postharvest process (i.e. tea manufacturing process). In recent years, our research group has elucidated the biosyntheses of several characteristic aroma compounds prevalent in teas, which were derived from volatile fatty acid derivatives, volatile terpenes, volatile phenylpropanoids/benzenoids, respectively. Several key aroma synthetic genes from tea leaves were isolated, cloned, sequenced, and functionally characterized. Furthermore, our studies showed that the biotic stress (for example, tea green leafhopper attack) and abiotic stress (for example, light, temperature, and mechanical damage) could enhanced the expression levels of the aroma synthetic genes, thus resulting in abundant accumulation of the characteristic aroma compounds in tea leaves. The knowledge of the specific relationships between the characteristic aroma compounds and stresses is a key element to achieve the safe and effective improvement of tea quality.

Biosyntheses of characteristic aroma compounds in tea (Camellia sinensis) leaves and their formations in response to biotic and abiotic stresses

256th National Meeting (2018)

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