Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany & Key Laboratory of South China Agricultural Plant Molecular Analysis and Genetic Improvement , South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Xingke Road 723 , Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650 , China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , No.19A Yuquan Road , Beijing 100049 , China.
J Agric Food Chem. 2019 Jun 19;67(24):6716-6724. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.9b01854. Epub 2019 Jun 7.
Insect attack is known to induce a high accumulation of volatile metabolites in tea ( Camellia sinensis). However, little information is available concerning the effect of insect attack on tea quality-related nonvolatile specialized metabolites. This study aimed to investigate the formation of characteristic nonvolatile specialized metabolites in tea leaves in response to attack by major tea insects, namely, tea green leafhoppers and tea geometrids, and determine the possible involvement of phytohormones in metabolite formation resulting from insect attack. Both tea green leafhopper and tea geometrid attacks increased the jasmonic acid and salicylic acid contents. The abscisic acid content was only increased under tea green leafhopper attack, perhaps due to special continuous piercing-sucking wounding. Tea green leafhopper attack induced the formation of theaflavins from catechins under the action of polyphenol oxidase, while tea geometrid attack increased the l-theanine content. Exogenous phytohormone treatments can affect the caffeine and catechin contents. These results will help to determine the influence of major tea pest insects on important tea quality-related metabolites and enhance understanding of the relationship of phytohormones and quality-related nonvolatile metabolite formation in tea exposed to tea pest insect attacks.
昆虫侵袭已知会导致茶叶（Camellia sinensis）中挥发性代谢物的大量积累。然而，关于昆虫侵袭对与茶叶质量相关的非挥发性特殊代谢物的影响，信息却很少。本研究旨在调查主要茶叶害虫，即茶绿叶蝉和茶尺蠖，侵袭时茶叶中特征性非挥发性特殊代谢物的形成，并确定植物激素是否参与昆虫侵袭导致的代谢物形成。茶绿叶蝉和茶尺蠖的侵袭均增加了茉莉酸和水杨酸的含量。只有在茶绿叶蝉的侵袭下，脱落酸的含量才会增加，这可能是由于特殊的连续穿刺式刺伤。茶绿叶蝉的侵袭在多酚氧化酶的作用下诱导儿茶素形成茶黄素，而茶尺蠖的侵袭则增加了茶氨酸的含量。外源植物激素处理可以影响咖啡因和儿茶素的含量。这些结果将有助于确定主要茶叶害虫对重要茶叶质量相关代谢物的影响，并深入了解茶叶受到茶叶害虫侵袭时植物激素与质量相关非挥发性代谢物形成的关系。
