Kaiwen Liang

Comprehensive Utilization Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resouces, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Bioscience Methods, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 6   doi: 10.5376/bm.2025.16.0028
Received: 25 Sep., 2025    Accepted: 06 Nov., 2025    Published: 26 Nov., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Liang K.W., 2025, Genetic tools for enhancing tea plant resistance to biotic stress, Bioscience Methods, 16(6): 289-298 (doi: 10.5376/bm.2025.16.0028)

 

The tea tree (Camellia sinensis) is a crop of significant economic and cultural value worldwide. However, its yield and quality are often affected by various biological stresses, including fungal diseases and pest attacks. Against the backdrop of intensified ecological pressure and restricted pesticide use, enhancing tea trees' resistance to pests and diseases has become a key task for achieving sustainable development of the tea industry. This study systematically explored the genetic tools used to enhance the resistance of tea plants to biological stress, integrating the latest achievements in traditional breeding, molecular biology and modern biotechnology. It reviewed the genetic and physiological basis of tea plant resistance traits, focusing on key resistance genes, their expression patterns and regulatory mechanisms. Based on the comparison of traditional breeding methods with modern molecular strategies (such as molecular marker-assisted selection MAS, RNA interference RNAi, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology), the advantages of precision breeding in the directional enhanced resistance pathway were demonstrated. The functions of defense signaling networks (especially jasmonic acid JA, salicylic acid SA and ethylene ET pathways) as well as transcription factors and epigenetic regulatory factors in resistance expression were also explored. This study provides a comprehensive overview and practical guidance on the genetic techniques required to enhance the biological stress resistance of tea plants, aiming to promote the in-depth integration of tea plant resistance breeding research and industrial application.

Tea tree (Camellia sinensis); Biological stress; Molecular breeding; Gene editing; Regulatory mechanism