A new DNA marker CafLess-TCS1 for selection of caffeine-less tea plants.

A clonal line of , 'Taliensis-akeme' has a recessive caffeine-less gene. To accelerate breeding of caffeine-less tea cultivars using this gene, DNA markers are indispensable for selecting heterozygotes that do not show a caffeine-less phenotype as parental lines. Therefore, we tried to determine the sequence of the six () genes to search for polymorphisms and to prepare one of the genes as a selection marker. Six genes and the caffeine-less trait were mapped on the reference linkage map of tea. Strong linkage between the caffeine-less phenotype and indicate that it is a promising candidate as a causative gene of the caffeine-less trait. We decided to use a three-nucleotide insertion in that can be distinguished by sequencing as a selection marker named 'CafLess-TCS1'. Caffeine-less individuals appeared in the progeny population of caffeine-less heterozygous individuals selected using 'CafLess-TCS1'. These results confirmed that the developed 'CafLess-TCS1' will be an effective selection marker for breeding of caffeine-less tea cultivars.