Metabolites of Camellia sinensis (L.) from biotic-abiotic stresses and
deciphering the molecular basis of Helopeltis theivora Waterhouse’s
infestation
Abstract
Helopeltis theivora Waterhouse (Hemiptera: Miridae), commonly as tea
mosquito bug (TMB), is an economic pest to the world tea industry and
its resistance has been promoting for a novel management strategy.
Moreover, to understand and explore the effect of such biotic factor
i.e.TMB’s sap-sucking and abiotic factor i.e. artificial mechanical
injury on tea foliages, metabolomics is rapidly emerging as a one-step
tool. Therefore, a comparative and qualitative HR-LCMS based metabolomic
study is carried out on four young tea leaf samples viz. healthy (HTL),
un-infested (UIP), infested (IP), and artificial spots (ACS). From a
unique methodology, dynamic and selective hypersensitive (like)
responses of tea are observed, for the TMB’s sap-sucking and artificial
mechanical injury. Interestingly under TMB’s biotic stress, the UIP
sample shows the expression (N=24) and suppression (N=27) of metabolites
as compared to HTL sample. Whereas, the ACS sample from abiotic stress
reveals unique metabolites (N=20) in comparison to the UIP and HTL
samples. The IP sample from biotic stress surprisingly carries unique
metabolites (N=9) in contrast to UIP, HTL, and ACS samples. Based on
pharmacological and chemical properties, these nine secreted metabolites
of TMB are hypothesized for the overall molecular mechanism of TMB’s
sap-sucking process.