Abstract
BackgroundTea is one of the most popular beverages in the world. There are many secondary metabolites can be found in tea such as anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, flavonols and catechins. These secondary metabolites in plants are proved to act protective components for human health effect. Plant hormone ethylene is considered to have an important role in regulation of plant development and signal transduction. This study evaluated the effect of ethylene signaling regulation in phenolic compounds in tea plants. The ethylene precursor 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) enhanced contents of total catechin in treated oolong tea seedlings.ResultsThe degree of epigallocatechin and epicatechin galloylation was increased after ACC treatment in oolong tea seedlings by high performance liquid chromatography determination. The contents of anthocyanins, flavonoids, and total polyphenol were higher after ACC treatment in comparison with control. Antioxidant enzyme such as catalase, superoxide dismutase, and total peroxidase decreased their antioxidant activities after ACC treatment, yet the activity of ascorbate peroxidase is increased. The ability of oxygen radical absorption and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl was used to evaluate the antioxidant activity, which was enhanced by ACC treatment.ConclusionsTaken together the results of this study demonstrate that the ethylene signaling is involved in modulation of secondary metabolites accumulation and antioxidant ability that to enhance the benefit of human health in tea products.
Highlights
Tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world
Our results demonstrate that the contents of secondary metabolites and capacity of antioxidant can be increased through modulating ethylene signaling pathways in tea
Content and degree of catechin galloylation were higher in response to ethylene signaling The level of catechin galloylation was determined through High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) after 5 days of treatment with the ethylene precursor 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), and the content of total catechin and values of ECG/(EC + ECG) and EGCG/(EGC + EGCG) were calculated
Summary
There are many secondary metabolites can be found in tea such as anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, flavonols and catechins. These secondary metabolites in plants are proved to act protective components for human health effect. This study evaluated the effect of ethylene signaling regulation in phenolic compounds in tea plants. Tea plants are rich in secondary metabolites, which have potential health benefits for humans (Zhou et al 2016). Secondary metabolic products in tea include flavonoids, polyphenols, theanine, and alkaloids. Flavonoids are a large group of phenolic secondary metabolites including anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, phenolic acids, flavonols and catechins (Abeynayake et al 2012; Sun et al 2016). The production of secondary metabolites in higher plants is often affected by hormone regulation. Studies on rice coleoptiles have shown that ethylene induces the accumulation of polyamine (Lee and Chu 1992)
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