Comparative Biochemical Analysis of the Short Term Responses of Cicer arietinum L. to Cd and Pb Toxicity

Prasann Kumar and Pankaj Kumar

Abstract

Heavy metal stress is one of the major abiotic stresses that cause environmental pollution in recent decades. These metals unlike other organic pollutants are not degraded and converted into harmless compounds via biological processes. The study indicates that the treatment of Chickpea by cadmium and lead at different stage of growth resulted in decrease of all the biochemical parameters observed such as chlorophyll ‘a’ and ‘b’ content, nitrate reductase activity(E.C.1.6.6.1), proline content, SOD activity(E.C.1.15.1.1) and peroxidase activity(E.C.1.11.1.7).