Science reveals the secrets of the tea plant – VIDEO
Botanists have revealed the secrets of the tea plant, as they decoded the genetic building blocks of the popular plant, BBC News reports.
A team in China has decoded the genetic building blocks of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, whose leaves are used in the production for black, oolong and green tea.
So far, the genetics of the plant were little known, despite it being very important both from an economic perspective and a cultural one.
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“There are many diverse flavours, but the mystery is what determines or what is the genetic basis of tea flavours? Together with the construction of genetic maps and new sequencing technologies, we are working on an updated tea tree genome that will investigate some of the flavour,” said plant geneticist Lizhi Gao of Kunming Institute of Botany, China, who led the research.
Dr Monique Simmonds, deputy director of science at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, UK, not connected with the research, said that the study provided an important insight into the genetic building blocks of tea, stating that ”overall, the findings from this study could have a significant impact on those involved in the breeding of tea but also those involved in breeding many plants used medicinally and in cosmetics, as the compounds that occur in tea are often associated with the biological properties of plants used medicinally or in cosmetics.”
The decoding of the tea plant genome took more than five years, since it is more than four times the size of the coffee plant genome, having three billion DNA base pairs in length. “Our lab has successfully sequenced and assembled more than 20 plant genomes. But this genome, the tea tree genome, was tough,” said Prof Gao, who carried out the work in South Korea and the US.
Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), UK, said the work gave plant breeders a “powerful new tool”, both for producing new varieties and understanding the evolution of the plant.
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