An integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals the dynamic changes of key metabolites and flavor formation over Tieguanyin oolong tea production

Chenxue Li; Jiaqi Lin; Qingcai Hu; Yun Sun; Liangyu Wu

doi:10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100952

An integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals the dynamic changes of key metabolites and flavor formation over Tieguanyin oolong tea production

Food Chem X. 2023 Oct 21:20:100952. doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100952. eCollection 2023 Dec 30.

Authors

Chenxue Li¹, Jiaqi Lin¹, Qingcai Hu¹, Yun Sun¹, Liangyu Wu¹

Affiliation

¹ College of Horticulture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

To interpret the formation characteristic flavor during oolong tea manufacturing process, the dynamic changes of key flavor components in samples from various processing steps of Tieguanyin oolong tea production were investigated using widely-targeted metabolomic and the transcriptomic approaches. As a result, a total of 1078 metabolites were determined, of which 62 compounds were identified as biomarkers significantly changed over the manufacturing process. Quantitative determination of the total 50,343 transcripts showed 7480 of them were co-expressed different genes. Glutamic acid served as a critical metabolism hub and a signaling molecule for diverse stress responses. Additionally, the targeted quantification results showed that the contents of catechins and xanthine alkaloids in dried tea were dramatically decreased by 20.19% and 7.15% respectively than those in fresh leaves, which potentially contributed to the alleviation of astringent or bitter palates, promoting the characteristic mellow and rich flavor of Tieguanyin oolong tea.

Keywords: Enzymatic-catalyzed phase; Flavor component accumulation; Metabolomics; Tieguanyin tea; Transcriptomics.