DNA条形码技术在茶叶品种鉴定中的研究现状及展望
Research Status and Prospects of DNA Barcoding Technology in Tea Varieties Identification

茶树是重要经济作物，因其叶片是世界范围内普遍使用的饮品原料。中国作为主要的茶叶生产和消费国，商业市场中拥有种类繁多的茶产品；但是，茶叶加工制作后对其外观的改变，严重影响对茶叶产品的植物品种来源的纯度鉴定。DNA条形码技术是一种利用种间特异性的基因序列信息快速、精准鉴定物种类型的分子检测的较新方法，其目前已越来越多的应用于动植物及真菌等的生物多样性研究中。因此，将DNA条形码技术应用于茶产品的鉴定，具有保质和防伪的茶业市场运用价值。本文从DNA条形码技术及其在茶叶中的研究进展角度出发，主要总结了该技术应用于茶叶(生产)上的现状以及存在的实践技术问题，探讨了基于DNA条形码分析手段提高茶叶品种鉴定精准确度和效率的可能性新方法。
Tea plant (Camellia sinensis L.) represents an important commercial crop, because its leaves are used worldwide as direct and raw material for a beverage(s). China is a major tea producing- and consuming-country, and a large variety of commercial tea products occur in Chinese market; however, because of a strong change of a leaf shape or appearance by a manufactory processing, it makes difficult to effectively distinguish/identify the purity of a tea product originated from a given plant species. The DNA barcoding technology, a recently emerged molecular approach for quick and accurate identification of a genotype of (intra) species on the base of (intra) species- specific gene sequence information, has been increasingly applied to investigate a bio-diversity of animals, plants and fungi, etc. Thus, the use of the DNA barcoding techniques for distinguishing tea products has an application value in relation to protecting quality and anti-counterfeiting in tea- industry and market. In this review, from a viewpoint of DNA barcoding technology and its use in tea plant research advance, we have mainly summarized the present application status and practical limitation of this technology as applied in the tea production, and discussed a possible new methodology aiming at improving an accuracy and efficiency for testing or identifying tea varieties based on DNA barcoding analysis.