Tea varieties with specific colours have often been studied by researchers. However, previous studies on the albinism of tea plants have mostly been based on plants with different genetic backgrounds or focused on common components in albino tea leaves, such as amino acids, flavones, and carotenoids. In this study, we conducted widely targeted metabolic and transcriptomic analyses between a wildtype tea genotype (Shuixian, LS) and its albino mutant (Huangjinshuixian, HS). At the molecular level, alteration of gene expression levels in the MEP pathway may have reduced the production of chlorophyll and carotenoids in HS, which could be the main cause of the phenotypic changes in HS. At the metabolite level, a large number of metabolites related to light protection that significantly accumulated in HS, including flavones, anthocyanins, flavonols, flavanones, vitamins and their derivatives, polyphenols, phenolamides. This result, combined with an enzyme activity experiment, suggested that the absence of photosynthetic pigments made the albino tea leaves of HS more vulnerable to UV stress, even under normal light conditions. In addition, except for the common amino acids, we also identified numerous nitrogen-containing compounds, including nucleotides and their derivates, amino acid derivatives, glycerophospholipids, and phenolamides, which implied that significant accumulation of NH₄⁺ in albino tea leaves could not only promote amino acid synthesis but could also activate other specialized metabolic pathways related to nitrogen metabolism. In conclusion, our results provide new information to guide further studies of the extensive metabolic reprogramming events caused by albinism in tea plants.

研究人员经常研究具有特定颜色的茶品种。然而，先前对茶树白化病的研究主要基于具有不同遗传背景的植物，或侧重于白化茶叶中的常见成分，例如氨基酸，黄酮和类胡萝卜素。在这项研究中，我们在野生型之间进行了针对性强的代谢和转录组分析茶基因型（水县，LS）及其白化突变体（黄金水县，HS）。在分子水平上，MEP途径中基因表达水平的改变可能减少了HS中叶绿素和类胡萝卜素的产生，这可能是HS表型变化的主要原因。在代谢物水平上，大量与光保护有关的代谢物在HS中大量积累，包括黄酮，花青素，黄酮醇，黄烷酮，维生素及其衍生物，多酚，酚酰胺。该结果与酶活性实验相结合，表明光合色素的缺乏使得HS的白化茶叶即使在正常光照条件下也更容易受到UV胁迫的影响。此外，除了常见的氨基酸外，我们还鉴定出许多含氮化合物，白化茶叶中的₄ ⁺不仅可以促进氨基酸合成，还可以激活其他与氮代谢有关的专门代谢途径。总之，我们的结果提供了新的信息，以指导进一步研究由白化病在茶树中引起的广泛的代谢重编程事件。