The seedlings of Cicer arietinum, grown in sand culture, were supplied with 0, 50, 100 or 150 µM of cadmium in the form of cadmium chloride at 5, 15 or 25 day stage and assessed for specific characteristics, 10 days after each treatment. | Turk J Biol 31 (2007) 137-140 © TÜB‹TAK Cadmium-Induced Changes in the Growth and Carbonic Anhydrase Activity of Chickpea Syed Aiman HASAN, Barket ALI, Shamsul HAYAT, Aqil AHMAD Plant Physiology Section, Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002 - INDIA Received: Abstract: The seedlings of Cicer arietinum, grown in sand culture, were supplied with 0, 50, 100 or 150 µM of cadmium in the form of cadmium chloride at 5, 15 or 25 day stage and assessed for specific characteristics, 10 days after each treatment. It was a general observation in all the samplings that length, fresh and dry mass of both root and shoot and activity of carbonic anhydrase in leaf decreased, whereas proline content both in leaf and root increased. The intensity of the damage was proportionate with the concentration of the metal but was prominent at the earliest stage of growth (. 5 days). Values for all the observed parameters increased as the growth of the seedling progressed. Key Words: Carbonic anhydrase, chickpea, proline Introduction Heavy metal belongs to major pollutants that are accumulated in the environment. However, the accumulation in the soil has become a worldwide problem leading to the loss of agricultural productivity. Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic trace pollutant for humans, animals and plants, which enters the environment mainly from industrial processes and phosphate fertilizers and then is transferred to the food chain (1). Cd is strongly phytotoxic and causes growth inhibition and even plant death. Cd produces alteration in various physiological processes that include growth retardation, inhibition of enzymes, and altered stomatal action (2-3). Photosynthesis is also sensitive to Cd, chlorophyll being one of the targets (4), as well as the enzyme involved in CO2 fixation (5). In this work, the effect of growing chickpea plants with cadmium chloride (CdCl2) on growth and carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity was studied in order to know .
