Influence of Jasmine oil and Methyl Jasmonate on Gene Expression and Menthol Production in Mentha

Mentha is the major source of menthol used for many important commercial and pharmaceutical purposes. For enhanced menthol production, this study aimed to assess the influence of the foliar application of Jasmine oil and Methyl Jasmonate by 0.05 and 0.1% on gene expression, essential oil, and its component especially Menthol in Mentha piperita L. Exogenously foliar application of Methyl Jasmonate (MeJA) and Jasmine oil (JO) treatments induced alteration of gene expression patterns which was detected by a cDNA-SCoT technique with high informative and discrimination capability. Where it targeted 33 clear transcript-derived amplicons, 21 out of them were new transcripts. Differential expression analysis of these patterns illustrated that the higher influence was by Jasmine oil with concentration 0.1% at 48 h followed by MeJA-0.1% at 24 h. On the other hand, mfs-transcripts were differentially regulated by MeJA and JO treatments. In general, the results revealed high level of volatile oil, high percentages of menthol (1.52 and 1.47-fold) with the low percentages of the menthone (0.69 and 0.77- fold), lowest level of upregulated menthofuran gene expression (-0.88 and -0.72 Log2FC). Besides, good vegetative growth relative to the control was found with exogenously foliar application of MeJA by 0.05% after 48 h and JO by 0.1% after 24 h, which increases the pharmacological quality of Mentha plant. Subsequently, indicating the possibility of using JO (Low-cost) after further study as a stimulant for the activity of menthol production with high quality as a cheaper alternative to exogenously foliar application of MeJA.