Characteristic secondary metabolites, including flavonoids, theanine and caffeine, in the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) are the primary sources of the rich flavors, fresh taste, and health benefits of tea. The decoding of genes involved in these characteristic components is still significantly lagging, which lays an obstacle for applied genetic improvement and metabolic engineering. With the popularity of high-throughout transcriptomics and metabolomics, 'omics'-based network approaches, such as gene co-expression network and gene-to-metabolite network, have emerged as powerful tools for gene discovery of plant-specialized (secondary) metabolism. Thus, it is pivotal to summarize and introduce such system-based strategies in facilitating gene identification of characteristic metabolic pathways in the tea plant (or other plants). In this review, we describe recent advances in transcriptomics and metabolomics for transcript and metabolite profiling, and highlight 'omics'-based network strategies using successful examples in model and non-model plants. Further, we summarize recent progress in 'omics' analysis for gene identification of characteristic metabolites in the tea plant. Limitations of the current strategies are discussed by comparison with 'omics'-based network approaches. Finally, we demonstrate the potential of introducing such network strategies in the tea plant, with a prospects ending for a promising network discovery of characteristic metabolite genes in the tea plant.
Keywords: characteristic metabolic pathway; gene discovery; metabolomics; network approach; plant-specialized metabolite; the tea plant; transcriptomics.