Lipoxygenase (LOXs) is a large family of plant enzymes that catalyse the hydroperoxidation of free polyunsaturated fatty acids into diverse biologically active compounds, collectively named phyto-oxylipins. Although multiple isoforms of LOXs have been identified in a wide range of annual herbaceous plants, the genes encoding these enzymes in perennial woody plants have not received as much attention. In Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze, no LOX gene of any type has been isolated, and its possible role in tea plant development, senescence, and defence reaction remains unknown. The present study describes the isolation, characterization, and expression of the first tea plant LOX isoform, namely CsLOX1, and seeks to clarify the pattern of its expression in the plant's defence response as well as in flower opening and senescence.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Tambocerus sp. (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) from Zhejiang and Anhui provinces of China was sequenced. The total length of the mitogenome is 15 955 bp (GenBank accession no. KT827824) and consists of 22 transfer RNAs, 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNAs and 1 control region. The base composition of the heavy strand for A, T, C, and G is 41.39, 35.02, 14.00, and 9.59%, respectively. All of the protein-coding genes (PCGs) start with ATN. Five protein-coding genes use TAA as stop codons, four use TAG as stop codons, and others use incomplete stop codons ‘‘T––’’ or ‘‘TA–’’. The control region has a length of 1581 bp which is between rrnS and trnI genes with the AT content high to 85.96%. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that Tambocerus sp. was clustered in a closely related subgroup with Homalodisca vitripennis and Empoasca vitis. This is consistent with the result of the traditional taxonomy.

Tea green leafhopper is one of the most damaging tea pests in main tea production regions of East Asia. For lack of recognized morphological characters, the dominant species of tea green leafhoppers in Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan have always been named as Empoasca vitis Göthe, Jacobiasca formosana Paoli and Empoasca onukii MATSUDA, respectively. Furthermore, nothing is known about the genetic relationships among them. In this study, we collected six populations from Mainland China, four populations from Japan and one population from Taiwan, and examined the genetic distances in the COI and 16sRNA regions of mtDNA among them. The results showed that the genetic distances based on single gene or the combined sequences among eleven leafhopper populations were 0.3–1.2%, which were all less than the species boundary of 2%. Moreover, there were at least two haplotypes shared by two distinct populations from different regions. The phylogenetic analysis based on single gene or combined sets also supported that tea green leafhoppers from Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan were closely related to each other, and there were at least two specimens from different regions clustered ahead of those from the same region. Therefore, we propose that the view of recognizing the dominant species of tea green leafhoppers in three adjacent tea production regions of East Asia as different species is unreliable or questionable and suggest that they are a single species.