Chuchu Liu¹ , Zonghui Liu²

1 Institute of Life Sciences, Jiyang Colloge of Zhejiang AandF University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
2 Tropical Medicinal Plant Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resouces, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Journal of Tea Science Research, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 1   doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2025.15.0005
Received: 08 Jan., 2025    Accepted: 10 Feb., 2025    Published: 22 Feb., 2025

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.

Liu C.C., and Liu Z.H., 2025, Genetic basis of stress tolerance in tea: a research insight, Journal of Tea Science Research, 15(1): 38-46 (doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2025.15.0005)

Tea (Camellia sinensis) as an economic crop is generally challenged with heterogenous abiotic stresses (drought, high temperature, low temperature, salinity) and biotic stresses (pathogens and pests) that negatively affect its yield and quality. In the recent several years, multi-omics technologies like genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics have more and more clarified the genetic basis and regulatory mechanism of stress tolerance in tea plants. These studies highlight processes such as perception of stress signals, control of transcription factors, hormonal crosstalk, and functional characterization of the key resistance-related genes. The study summarizes molecular and genetic advances in tea response to major stresses, outlines genetic resources and regulatory circuits to stress tolerance, and considers opportunities for using emerging technologies such as multi-omics integration and genome editing in tea improvement. It also illustrates current challenges and limitations, including genome complexity, interaction between multiple stress factors, and laboratory-test-field divergence. This study provides a systematic idea on tea plant stress resistance genetic mechanisms and can be employed as theoretical foundation and scientific basis for breeding stress-tolerant varieties and sustainable development of the tea industry in the future.

Tea plant; Stress resistance; Genetic basis; Multi-omics; Molecular breeding