Abstract
“Huangjinya” is a light-sensitive albino variety and is widely cultivated in China. It has been proved that red light could promote the vegetable growth of plants. However, the mechanism of “Huangjinya” in response to a red light is unclear. This study used high-throughput sequencing technology to analyze the transcriptome of tender shoots of “Huangjinya” under the white and red light supplement conditions. At the same time, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to analyze metabolite changes under different light conditions. Transcriptome analysis revealed that a total of 174 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified after the red light supplement. Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) classification indicated that amino acid metabolism enriched the most DEGs. In addition, two phenylpropanoid metabolism-related genes and five glutathione S-transferase genes (CsGSTs) were found to be expressed differently. Metabolome analysis revealed that 193 differential metabolites were obtained. Being the same as transcriptome analysis, most differential metabolites were enriched in amino acids, sweet and umami tasting amino acids were increased, and bitter-tasting amino acids were decreased after the red light supplement. In summary, red light supplementary treatment may be propitious to the quality of “Huangjinya” due to its regulatory effect on amino acid metabolism. Also, CsGSTs involved phenylpropanoid metabolism contributed to tea quality changes in “Huangjinya.”
Highlights
Albino tea germplasm is one of the hot research topics in tea breeding
The isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification-based proteome analysis revealed that the reduction of primary carbon metabolism and decrease in carbon skeleton leads to abnormal chloroplast development, the chlorophyll and flavonoid biosynthesis was inhibited (Dong et al, 2018)
The gene ontology (GO) classification indicated that detoxification of biological processes enriched a high proportion of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (Figure 3)
Summary
The phenotype and quality of albino tea cultivars were influenced by environmental factors, such as temperature and light (Feng et al, 2014; Song et al, 2017; Ma et al, 2018). Many studies were conducted to elucidate the potential molecular link between environment and albino phenotype or quality of tea plants (Chen et al, 2021, 2022; Yu et al, 2021). As well, shading treatment mainly results in the changes in flavonoid, carotenoid, and amino acid biosynthesisassociated genes in “Huangjinya” (Song et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2017). All of the above studies were about the effect of light intensity on “Huangjinya” by shading treatment. Few studies were found about light quality on “Huangjinya.”
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
