A variant of tea tree (Camellia sinensis (L.)) with purple buds and leaves and pink flowers can be used as a unique ornamental plant. However, the mechanism of flower coloration remains unclear. To elucidate the molecular mechanism of coloration, as well as anthocyanin accumulation in white and pink tea flowers, metabolite profiling and transcriptome sequencing was analyzed in various tea flower developmental stages. Results of metabolomics analysis revealed that three specific anthocyanin substances could be identified, i.e., cyanidin O-syringic acid, petunidin 3-O-glucoside, and pelargonidin 3-O-β-d-glucoside, which only accumulated in pink tea flowers, and were not able to be detected in white flowers. RNA-seq and weighted gene co-expression network analysis revealed eight highly expressed structural genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway, and particularly, different expression patterns of flavonol synthase and dihydroflavonol-4-reductase genes were observed. We deduced that the disequilibrium of expression levels in flavonol synthases and dihydroflavonol-4-reductases resulted in different levels of anthocyanin accumulation and coloration in white and pink tea flowers. Results of qRT-PCR performed for 9 key genes suggested that the expression profiles of differentially expressed genes were generally consistent with the results of high-throughput sequencing. These findings provide insight into anthocyanin accumulation and coloration mechanisms during tea flower development, which will contribute to the breeding of pink-flowered and anthocyanin-rich tea cultivars.

As a continuation of our efforts to discover and develop “me-better” active molecules, in this study, a series of novel isoxazole-amide derivatives containing an acylhydrazone moiety were synthesized and evaluated for their antiviral activities against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). Antiviral bioassays indicated that some of the target compounds exhibited better in vivo antiviral activities against TMV and CMV than those of Ningnanmycin (NNM). Especially, the compound 7t exhibited the best curative, protection, and inactivation activities against TMV and CMV which were superior to those of NNM. Meanwhile, our present work also revealed that compound 7t could enhance the defense-related enzyme activity and increase the chlorophyll content in tobacco leaves to induce resistance and enhance plant tolerance to TMV infection.

Based on microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) and headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) followed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was developed for the fast determination of volatile chemical compositions of Polygala furcata Royle, the experimental parameters of the MAE–HS-SPME were optimized by orthogonal experimental design. The results indicated that the optimum condition of the determination of the volatile compounds in P. furcata Royle. was achieved with the experimental parameters including microwave power of 400 W and irradiation time of 4 min, sample size 2.0 g. Under the optimal conditions, for the first time, 52 volatile compounds were separated and identified from the fresh plants of P. furcata Royle. The highest content component of the 52 compounds was 2-hydroxybenzoic acid methyl ester (21.65%). The relative standard deviation values <7% showed that the method of MAE–HS-SPME followed by GC–MS has good precision. The experimental results demonstrated that it is a simple, time-saving and solvent-free method, and it is a potential analytic tool for the determination of the volatile compounds of the vegetations materials and other materials.