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. 2025 Mar 24:27:102410.
doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2025.102410. eCollection 2025 Apr.

Revealing novel insights into the improvement of greenhouse tea quality through exogenous substance interventions using targeted and untargeted metabolomics and microbial community analyses

Haozhen Li  1 , Shuyao Wang  1   2 , Xiaohua Zhang  1 , Kangkang Song  1 , Long Yang  1
Affiliations

Revealing novel insights into the improvement of greenhouse tea quality through exogenous substance interventions using targeted and untargeted metabolomics and microbial community analyses

Haozhen Li et al. Food Chem X. .

Abstract

Tea quality in greenhouse was certain gap with open air. Metabolites and foliar microorganisms were investigated under seaweed fertiliser (CF) and gibberellin (CH) treatments using sensory evaluation, HPLC, untargeted metabolomics, 16S rDNA, and Internal Transcribed Spacer. CF tea was mellow, less astringent, and of better quality compared to CH. Catechin, -(-)Epicatechin, and Epigallocatechin were notably lower in CF. Differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) were notably enriched in Flavonoid and Phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, both involved in Catechin synthesis. DAMs in these pathways appeared down-regulated in CF. The CF improved quality by down-regulating metabolites in Phenylpropanoid biosynthesis in conjunction with microbial community metabolism enriched in amino acid and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Metabolite- microbial correlation analysis indicated that the highest correlation with phenylpropane pathway metabolites was in bacteria Variovorax and Pseudomonas, and in fungi Filobasidium. The study provides theoretical basis for regulating flavour quality of greenhouse tea.

Keywords: Greenhouse tea; Metabolomics; Microorganisms; Quality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Sensory quality analysis of tea leaves of different treatments (A) Overall Score (B) Sensory evaluation (C) Dry tea appearance.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Quantitative and characterisation analyses of metabolomic data of tea leaves from CF and CH groups (A) Variations in content of 10 key flavour metabolites in quantitative data (B) Differences in content of 10 key flavour metabolites in untargeted metabolic data.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Metabolic pathways of differential metabolites (A) Volcano map of differential metabolites (B) The top10 significant KEGG-enriched pathway in DAMs (C) Phenylpropane and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways. Red indicated up-regulation, blue indicated down-regulation, and colour blocks in the pathway indicated differential metabolites. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Multi-species variations and signature microorganism selection in CF and CH tea samples (A) Bacterial Ace and shannon index (B) Fungal Ace and shannon index (C) Species composition at the bacterial genus level (D) Species composition at the fungal genus level.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Correlation and functional analysis of microorganisms with metabolites (A) The RDA analysis of bacteria with metabolites (B) The RDA analysis of fungi with metabolites (C) Correlation analysis of bacteria with metabolites (D) Correlation analysis of fungi with metabolites (E) Functional analysis of KEGG pathway in bacteria (F) Differences in functional abundance of microorganisms in Phenylpropanoid biosynthesis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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