Germplasm and Breeding Research of Tea Plant Based on DNA Marker Approaches

Tea is the most popular non-alcoholic and healthy beverage worldwide. Tea production contributes greatly to the economy and provides job opportunities for many countries in Asia and Africa. Meanwhile, the germplasm of tea, with a huge potential for the future of the whole tea industry, is presently one of the most valuable and fundamental materials for tea breeding and tea biotechnology. DNA molecular markers have been proven to be robust and valuable approaches in the studies of genetic diversity and variation, molecular identification, molecular phylogenetics, genetic stability and integrity of tea germplasm and the genetic linkage map for breeding of tea. In this paper, a brief description of the molecular marker studies of tea has been summarized. The purpose is to provide an effective way of undertaking a massive tea germplasm appraisal and evaluation, to develop new applicable and cheap DNA markers, to establish a high density genetic linkage map and analyze the agronomically important QTLs and, finally, to facilitate the markers assisted early selection and shorten breeding procedures in tea.