| dc.description.abstract | The perennial tea plants (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) are imposed by a significant challenge of deteriorating yield and quality due to a more frequent and severe drought in recent years. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of drought stress response in tea plants is important to facilitate new tea cultivar development as one sustainable approach for coping with this threat. Nguyen Hoang Khoi Le, a labmate of mine, has investigated the transcriptomic response to drought stress in four genetically related Taiwan tea cultivars with contrasting drought tolerance (TTES No. 12, TTES No. 19, TTES No. 22, and Chin-Shin-Oolong) by using RNA-seq analysis. In this study, I aimed to confirm the RNA-seq analysis results using the RT-qPCR method. Several genes putatively associating to differential tolerance to drought were tested, including MPK3 which encodes a protein kinase involved in signal transduction, RBOH encodes oxidase to produce reactive oxygen species, ABCG21 encodes ATP-binding cassette transporter, NAC083 encodes the NAC transcription factor, MYBH/KUA1 encodes an MYB transcription factor, C4H encodes an enzyme involved in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, HCT and F5H encode enzymes involved in lignin biosynthesis, and F3’H encodes an enzyme involved in flavonoid biosynthesis. According to the RT-qPCR analysis, MPK3 and RBOH were significantly up-regulated in TTES No. 22. ABCG21, NAC083, F3’H, HCT, and F5H were significantly up-regulated in TTES No. 12 and TTES No. 22. MYBH/KUA1 and C4H were not differentially expressed in four tea cultivars. The results of RT-qPCR analysis were largely consistent with the result of RNA-seq analysis. These findings would shed light on the molecular mechanism underlying drought resistance in the tea plants, highlighting potential gene targets for drought-tolerant tea cultivars breeding development. | en_US |