Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze is one of the most important non-alcoholic beverage crops in Asian and African countries. In recent years, many green tea cultivars have been released and played an important role in improving the production and quality of tea trees. The objectives of this study were to assess the genetic diversity of the eighteen main green tea cultivars in Zhejiang Province-the most famous green tea-producing area of China-using start codon-targeted (SCoT) markers and to develop a specific sequence-characterized amplified region (SCAR) marker for application in cultivar diagnosis. Thirty-one SCoT primers produced 264 loci, 226 of which were polymorphic. The genetic similarity coefficients among these green tea cultivars ranged from 0.587 to 0.814, indicating that a high level of genetic diversity was present. Both a UPGMA dendrogram and a PCoA plot grouped the tea cultivars into three groups. The partitioning of groups in the UPGMA and PCoA was similar, and much of the clustering was highly consistent with the classification of tea cultivars according to their genetic backgrounds. A unique SCoT band, SCoT4-1649, specific to the tea cultivar 'Yingshuang,' was transformed into a SCAR marker. This SCAR marker is highly useful for the identification and germplasm conservation of green tea cultivars.
Keywords: Genetic diversity; SCAR marker; SCoT marker; Tea plant; Varieties.