The roles of ascorbate and glutathione as key antioxidant molecules involves in environmental stress responses have already been well indicated. We conducted experiments in order to study the effects of exogenous ascorbate (ASC) and glutathione (GSH) treatments on antioxidant enzyme activities and ASC and GSH levels of cultivated and wild type chickpea plants under drought stress. We determined that ASC and GSH accumulation, antioxidant enzyme activities increased due to drought stress, except for CAT activity, in both species. ASC treatment increased ASC level and APX activity in C. arietinum under drought stress, except high concentration of ASC treatment. Antioxidant treatments increased antioxidant accumulation of C. reticulatum under drought stress. Antioxidant treatments did not lead to significantly changes in GR activity, in both species. However, exogenous ASC and GSH via eliminating of reactive oxygen species decreased SOD, CAT and APX activities in C. reticulatum. The results of present study indicate that ASC and GSH may contribute to the improvement of tolerance against drought stress in chickpea. Also, drought tolerant chickpea C. reticulatum showed a better protection mechanism against oxidative damage than the sensitive chickpea C. arietinum
The roles of ascorbate and glutathione as key antioxidant molecules involves in environmental stress responses have already been well indicated. We conducted experiments in order to study the effects of exogenous ascorbate and glutathione treatments on antioxidant enzyme activities and ASC and GSH levels of cultivated and wild type chickpea plants under drought stress. We determined that ASC and GSH accumulation, antioxidant enzyme activities increased due to drought stress, except for CAT activity, in both species. ASC treatment increased ASC level, APX and GR activity in C.arietinum under drought stress, except high concentration of ASC treatment. Antioxidant treatments increased GR activities and antioxidant accumulation of C.reticulatum, except for high concentration of GSH treatment under drought stress. However, exogenous ASC and GSH via eliminating of reactive oxygen species decreased CAT and APX activities in C.reticulatum. The results of present study indicate that ASC and GSH may contribute to the improvement of tolerance against drought stress in chickpea. Also, drought tolerant chickpea C.reticulatum showed a better protection mechanism against oxidative damage than the sensitive chickpea C.arietinum.