Jianmin Zheng¹ , Zhou Jiayao²

1 Institute of Life Sciences, Jiyang Colloge of Zhejiang A&F University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
2 Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Center, Cuixi Academy of Biotechnology, Zhuji, 311800, China
Author    Correspondence author
Journal of Tea Science Research, 2024, Vol. 14, No. 6   doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2024.14.0028
Received: 10 Sep., 2024    Accepted: 21 Oct., 2024    Published: 08 Nov., 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Zheng J.M., and Zhou J.Y., 2024, Unraveling the genetic networks controlling tea quality traits, Journal of Tea Science Research, 14(6): 304-312 (doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2024.14.0028)

Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, is a globally significant beverage crop with great economic, cultural, and nutritional value. Tea's quality traits, including flavor, aroma, mouthfeel, and major biochemical constituents, are very complex and are tightly regulated by multilevel genetic and metabolic networks. With advances in molecular biology and multi-omics technology, researchers have found more functional genes and key metabolic pathways involved in tea polyphenol biosynthesis, amino acids, caffeine, and aroma compounds. Quality-forming regulatory factors such as transcription factors, non-coding RNAs, and epigenetics also have vital roles. This review systematically integrates advances in genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and epigenomics, and considers how systems biology approaches (e.g., WGCNA, Bayesian networks, machine learning) could be applied to construct genetic regulatory networks underlying tea quality traits, and identify central regulators and tea-specific modules. It also considers the potential of molecular breeding technologies—e.g., molecular marker development, QTL mapping, and gene editing (e.g., CRISPR)—to enhance tea quality. A deep understanding of the genetic bases and regulatory mechanisms of tea quality traits is of great importance in the quest for enhancing molecular breeding, supporting high-quality industry development, and enhancing the international competitiveness of China's tea industry.

Tea quality; Genetic network; Functional genes; Transcriptional regulation; Metabolomics; Molecular breeding