Metabolomics reveals the within-plant spatial effects of shading on tea plants (original) (raw)

It is well known that green tea made from fully developed leaves located at the base of young shoots is of lower quality than that made from the still developing leaves located on the top of the shoot. It has additionally been shown that plant shading can significantly improve green tea quality. Here, we aimed to get more insight into the effects of shading on the overall metabolome in different parts of the tea shoots. To do this, field-grown tea plants were shaded by coverage with either a straw layer or a black net, both blocking the daylight intensity for more than 90%. Both the first (i.e. still developing) leaf and the fourth (i.e. fully developed) leaf, as well as the stem of young shoots were harvested and subjected to complementary untargeted metabolomics approaches, using accurate mass LC-Orbitrap-Fourier transform mass spectrometry (FTMS) for profiling both semi-polar and lipid-soluble compounds and GC-TOF-MS for profiling polar compounds. In total, 1419 metabolites wer...

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