Abstract: In order to study the variation of gene transcription in tea plant (Fuding Dabaicha cultivar) tender shoots during the increasing of EGCG content by ID1 exogenous induction, some gene fragments were isolated by the technique of fluorescent messenger RNA differential display reverse transcription-PCR (DDRT-PCR). 18 differentially displayed cDNA fragments were obtained from induced tea shoots and normal shoots by DDRT-PCR. Reverse northern hybridization showed that 5 of them might derive from transcripts of differentially expressed genes. Among them, the expression levels of differential cDNA sequences of DD2、DD9、DD12 and DD16 in induced tea shoots were higher than the control, and the expression level of differential cDNA sequences of DD3 was reversed. They were cloned into pGEM T-Easy vector, and the positive clones were confirmed by EcoRⅠ digestion. Their sequences were analyzed and DD12 appeared many unknown codes. BLAST was used to search the NCBInr-database at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. The results were as follows: DD2 shows 86% homology with the thioredoxin peroxidase gene from Nicotiana tabacum. The function of DD3, a fragment of RAPD Marker (AJ516005.1) from Camellia sinensis, was unknown. DD9 shows 80% homology with aldehyde dehydrogenase (NADH) gene from Lotus corniculatus and Arabidopsis thaliana. DD16 could not be found homologous with any sequences, thus, might be a new gene.

Key words: Induction, Tea plant, EGCG, Messenger RNA differential display, Sequence analysis