is a potential target for creating etiolated/albino tea plants () with high theanine accumulation.

Theanine content is highly correlated with sensory quality and health benefits of tea infusion. The tender shoots of etiolated and albino tea plants contain higher theanine than the normal green tea plants and are valuable materials for high quality green tea processing. However, why these etiolated or albino tea plants can highly accumulate theanine is largely unknown. In this study, we observed an etiolated mutant (mutation in , ) that accumulated higher levels of glutamine (an analog of theanine). We therefore identified CsHO1 in tea plants and found CsHO1 is conserved in amino acid sequences and subcellular localization with its homologs in other plants. Importantly, expression in the new shoots was much lower in an etiolated tea plants 'Huangkui' and an albino tea plant 'Huangshan Baicha' than that in normal green tea plants. The expression levels of were negatively correlated with theanine contents in these green, etiolated and albino shoots. Moreover, expression levels in various organs and different time points were also negatively correlated with theanine accumulation. The was hypersensitive to high levels of theanine and accumulated more theanine under theanine feeding, and these phenotypes were rescued by the expression of in this mutant. Transient knockdown expression in the new shoots of tea plant using antisense oligonucleotides (asODN) increased theanine accumulation. Collectively, these results demonstrated CsHO1 negatively regulates theanine accumulation in tea plants, and that low expression likely contributes to the theanine accumulation in etiolated/albino tea plants.