Antioxidant-enzyme reaction to the oxidative stress due to alpha-cypermethrin, chlorpyriphos, and pirimicarb in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.).

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) becomes one of the world's foremost vegetables, and its world production and consumption have increased fairly quickly. The capacity to induce oxidative stress in tomato plant, exposed to three xenobiotics such as alpha-cypermethrin, chlorpyriphos, and pirimicarb, was investigated by the evaluation of lipid peroxidation by measuring malondialdehyde (MDA) rate; also, we studied the response of tomato to this stress by assessing the response of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutathione-s-transferase (GST), and glutathione reductase (GR). The effect of the insecticides was observed using four concentrations (25, 50, 75, and 100%) for germinating seeds and only the recommended concentration in agriculture (100%) for growing plants. Our results show an important accumulation of MDA, demonstrating the increase of lipid peroxidation in consequence of the excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) production due to insecticide treatment. In response to this oxidative stress in tomato seedlings and plants, the activities of antioxidant-enzyme system were generally enhanced. The electrophoretic analysis showed also the apparition of new isoenzymes as the case for CAT and POD.