INDUCTION OF ANTHOCYANINS ACCUMULATION BY METHYL JASMONATE IN SHOOT OF CRASSULA MULTICAVA

Jasmonic acid (JA), methyl jasmonate (JA-Me) and their related compounds which are designated as jasmonates, are widely distributed in the plant kingdom and show various important biological activities in the regulation of plant growth and development, resulting in a consideration that they are putative new plant hormones. Endogenous levels of jasmonates, mainly JA, increase rapidly and transiently in plants or their organs under both abiotic and biotic stress conditions. Jasmonates consist of an integral part of the signal transduction chain between stress signal(s) and stress response(s). Methyl jasmonates can act as an intracellular regulator, a diffusible intercellular signal transducer, or an airborne signal mediating intra- and interplant communications. Jasmonates are important signal transducers in plant secondary metabolism which are produced via the octadecanoid pathway. Exogenous application of jasmonates greatly stimulated the biosynthesis of a wide range of secondary metabolites in cell suspension cultures and intact plants. As was previously reported, methyl jasmonate had stimulatory effect on anthocyanins accumulation in hypocotyl of light-grown soybean seedlings (Franceschi and Grimes 1991), in shoots of wild-type of Arabidopsis thaliana (Feys et al. 1994), in detached corollas of Petunia (Tamari et al. 1995), in stem and leaves of tulips (Saniewski et al. 1998a), in peach shoots (Saniewski et al. 1998b), in cell culture