POSSIBILITY OF FORMATION OF EXCITED FORMALDEHYDE AND SINGLET OXYGEN IN BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC STRESS SITUATIONS

The results obtained prove that singlet oxygen and excited formaldehyd e can be liberated from hydrogen peroxide and formaldehyde in free and bound L-lysine containing plant and other tissues, similarly to the m odel reactions. It can be concluded that these reactive molecules have extremely high reactivity and are possibly aggressive to cellular com ponents like proteins, nucleic acids and to microbial systems within p lant and other tissues. However, the manifestation of their activity d epends on level of quenching systems in plant and other tissues. It se ems that these special reactions and their products may be an importan t part of the resistance potential (e.g. natural disease resistance) i n biological systems.