Abstract Tea plant germplasm in Fujian Province is characterized by substantial genetic diversity, yet the genetic basis of variation in volatile aroma compounds remains poorly understood. Here, we integrated whole-genome resequencing and volatile metabolomics for 466 tea plant accessions from Fujian Province to conduct population genetic and association analyses. The accessions formed seven genetic subgroups with marked divergence in genetic diversity, LD decay, and volatile composition, suggesting that genetic background contributes to aroma variation in tea. Using HS-SPME-GC–MS, we detected 105 volatile compounds, of which 29 showed high genetic contribution (H2 0.5). Metabolite-based GWAS identified multiple significant loci, including a stable peak on chromosome 7, pinpointing an AP2/ERF transcription factor gene, CsERF-like, as a prime candidate. CsERF-like localized to the nucleus, and functional assays showed that AsODN-mediated suppression reduced, whereas transient overexpression increased, free linalool accumulation in tea. Haplotype analysis further revealed promoter and coding variants associated with linalool content and distinct geographic distributions of alleles. Together, our results connect population-scale genetic variation in tea plant to linalool phenotypes in tea and provide functional evidence that CsERF-like positively regulates linalool accumulation, offering candidate loci for aroma improvement and marker-assisted breeding in tea plant.
Shao et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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