Claudio Moreira

It was investigated the effects of methyl jasmonate (MeJa) and methyl salicylate (MeSA) on essential oil composition of Melissa officinalis in vitro plants. MeJA treatments showed an increase of 13% of geranial proportion during 24 h of exposition, when compared with the control plants, in MS0 medium. After 48h of treatment, in addition to the presence of 2-methyl-2-cyclopenten-1-one (8.5% of the oil), it was observed an increase of 1,531.2% of verbenol and 1,114.8% of citronellal. After 96 hours of MeJA exposition, any effect was observed on plant secondary metabolites production since the essential oil composition was similar to the control (MS0). Regarding MeSa treatments, with 72 hours of exposure, presented an accumulation of geranial 21.4% greater than the control.