Osmotin-expressing Tea Shows Improved Stress Tolerance and Quality

Drought is one of the major abiotic stress faced in production of tea, a widely consumed beverage globally. Thus, Amita Bhattacharya from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, together with other scientists, developed genetically engineered (GE) tea plants expressing osmotin, a protein involved in defense responses to abiotic stresses and several pathogens.

The GE tea plants were exposed to drought conditions and showed improved tolerance to water deficiency and faster recovery from stress, traits that were not evident in the non-GE variety of tea. Furthermore, the GE tea plants exhibited decreased oxidative stress. Higher levels of flavan-3-ols and caffeine, key compounds dictating the quality and yield of tea, were also observed in the GE tea plants. Therefore, the osmotin-expressing tea lines have the potential to address the need for stress tolerant tea varieties with improved quality and yield. These lines can be easily maintained for many generations because tea is commercially planted through vegetative propagation.

Read the abstract at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11248-013-9740-5.