The antioxidant apparatus in edible plants is crucial for its role in assessing plant tolerance to drought stress. Irrigated tomato, pepper and mint plants with 50 µmol gibberellin (GA3) prior exposed to drought stress for six days showed modifications of photosynthetic pigment, catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), total phenols and phenolic derivatives e.g. tartaric acid, flavonoids and anthocyanins. In stressed plants-lacking-GA3, the up-regulations were SOD in mint, CAT in tomato, total phenols and tartaric esters in pepper and mint, and anthocyanins in only mint. After GA3 pretreatment, the stressed plant exhibited differential modes of up-regulations in their antioxidants content were SOD in mint, CAT in tomato and pepper, total phenols in pepper plants, tartaric esters in tomato and anthocyanins in mint. Fluctuation in activity of antioxidant apparatus in different plants cultivars; suggested that each plant is using a distinct strategy, exploiting particular antioxidant for stress defense.
Key words: Anthocyanins, Catalase, Gibberellins, Superoxide dismutase, Tartaric esters, Total phenols.
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