CsUGT89A2 enhances tea plant resistance to Toxoptera aurantia by mediating flavonoid glycosides biosynthesis

Abstract

Tea plant [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] is a globally important crop but is severely threatened by Toxoptera aurantia infestations, which impact yield and safety. However, the response of tea plants to aphid feeding remains largely unexplored. This study investigates the feeding behavior of T. aurantia on different cultivars and identifies ‘Huangjinya’ and ‘Qiancha 1’ as susceptible and resistant cultivars, respectively. Transcriptome analysis revealed that CsUGT89A2 was significantly upregulated in response to T. aurantia infestation. In vitro biochemical assays demonstrated that CsUGT89A2 encodes a flavonoid 7-glycosyltransferase that catalyzes the conversion of flavonoids and UDP-glucose into flavonoid 7-O-glucosides. In vivo, silencing CsUGT89A2 significantly reduced flavonoid glycoside accumulation. To further clarify the role of CsUGT89A2 in tea plant resistance to T. aurantia, we used tobacco and tea flowers to evaluate aphid feeding and reproduction under chemical treatment, gene silencing, and gene overexpression conditions. Statistical analysis showed that, compared with flavonoids, the application of flavonoid 7-O-glycosides significantly reduced T. aurantia reproductive capacity. Furthermore, compared with the control, overexpression of CsUGT89A2 significantly reduced the reproductive ability of aphids, while its silencing increased reproductive rates. Overall, our findings demonstrate that CsUGT89A2 mediates flavonoid glycosylation and enhances insect resistance in tea plants by increasing flavonoid glycoside levels, offering new insights into the role of flavonoid glycosides in the insect resistance of C. sinensis.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Guizhou Science and Technology Support Project (Qiankehe Support [2020]1Y146), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 32002090; 32260788), the Guizhou Science and Technology Plan Project (Qiankehe Basics-ZK [2021] General 151; Qiankehe Basics-MS[2025] General 296), and the Guizhou University Cultivation Project (Guida cultivation [2019]32).

Author contributions

Xingrong Zhou and Dingli Chen: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, writing—original draft. Houhong Xiao Fengyun Tian and Mei Chen: conceptualization, methodology, formal Analysis. Youshudi Xie and Xue Dong: methodology, formal Analysis, investigation, software. Changli Yang and Yanglin Liang: visualization, investigation, Jie Ma, and Di Yang: methodology, formal Analysis, software. Xinlong Dai: writing—review and editing, resources, project management, supervision. Yan Li: writing—review and editing, validation, data curation.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this manuscript are avail. The transcriptome data used in this article has been uploaded to the NCBI database and the CNCB database of the bioproject, with a total of 21 sets of raw data obtained, and the accession numbers are as follows C. camelliae I and II (PRJNA493214), B. blight I and II (PRJNA306068), E. flavescens (PRJNA553681), E. grisescens (CRA000859), D. segeticola (PRJNA528172), G. blight (PRJNA564655), Drought (PRJEB11522), IBA I and II (PRJNA240661), High-temperature drought (PRJNA545401), NAA (PRJNA690632), Salt (PRJNA387271), BRS (PRJNA756445), SA (PRJNA857833), Cold (GSE216311), Sugar (PRJNA381680), MeJA (PRJNA288922), Aluminum (PRJNA473596), Drought with FA (PRJNA596070).

Additionally, in this study, the transcriptome data of the T. aurantia has been uploaded to the Sequence Read Archive database, with the accession number PRJNA1195731.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest between them.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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