Accepted Article Pre-harvest methyl jasmonate treatments increase antioxidant systems in lemon fruit without affecting yield or other fruit quality parameters a Serna-Escolano, V., a Valverde, J.M., a García-Pastor, M.E., a Valero, D., a Castillo, S., a Guillén, F., a Martínez-Romero, D., a Zapata, P., * b Serrano, M. a Department of Food Technology, EPSO, University Miguel Hernández, Ctra. Beniel km 3.2, 03312 Orihuela, Alicante, Spain b Department of Applied Biology, EPSO, University Miguel Hernández, Ctra. Beniel km 3.2, 03312 Orihuela, Alicante, Spain. *Corresponding author. E-mail: m.serrano@umh.es Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2251-3133 Running title: Methyl jasmonate treatments increase antioxidant systems in lemon fruit Abstract BACKGROUND: Jasmonic acid (JA) and its volatile derivative methyl jasmonate (MeJA) are hormones involved in regulating many processes in plants, and it has been reported their effect (applied as post- or pre-harvest treatment) on increasing fruit bioactive compounds with antioxidant potential. However, there is no literature regarding the effect of pre-harvest MeJA treatments on lemon fruit antioxidant systems, which was the aim of the present research. RESULTS: MeJA treatments (0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 mM) increased antioxidant compounds, such as phenolics, in juice and flavedo of „Fino‟ and „Verna‟ lemons at harvest, the most effective concentration being 0.1 mM in both cultivars. In addition, catalase This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/jsfa.9746