CHICKPEA ROOT AND NODULE ALCOHOL-DEHYDROGENASE ACTIVITIES AS VERY REACTIVE SYSTEMS MONITORING OXYGEN CONCENTRATIONS

Roots of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) are very sensitive to low oxygen c oncentration compared to other legumes such as groundnut (Arachis hypo gaea) and soybean (Glycine man). After incubation of one day under ana erobic conditions, the specific activity of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH ) in roots from chickpea was 8-fold increased compared to aerobic cont rol roots, whereas ADH activites from soybean and groundnut increased only 2-fold. After 5 days incubation under anaerobiosis, ADH activity from roots of chickpea was enhanced 15-fold over aerobic roots. Specif ic alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) activity in nodules of chickpea was 21- fold higher compared to roots, in soybean nodules the difference was 4 -fold and in ground-nut the activities were almost equal.