Oxidative Stress and Antioxidant Defense in Plants Under High Temperature

Climate change is a reality and agriculture is highly vulnerable. Keeping this in mind, this chapter will focus on oxidative stress in plants induced by a rise in ambient temperature considered as one of the most detrimental stresses and which strongly affects rop production. An increase in temperature induces the imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and biological system which readily detoxify these ROS. Oxidative stress damage lipid, protein and DNA leading to altered intrinsic membrane properties like fluidity, ion transport, loss of enzyme activity, protein cross linking, inhibition of protein synthesis, DNA damage and ultimately resulting in cell death. All these are discussed in present chapter. In order to cope with the oxidative stress and prevent plant from the harmful effect of oxidative stress plant must trigger different protective mechanisms which can be enzymatic or nonenzymatic. Hence the present chapter entitled “Oxidative stress and antioxidant defense in plants under high temperature” cover different aspects (good and bad) of ROS which cause oxidative stress along with physiological, biochemical and molecular aspects of antioxidant defense mechanisms (enzymatic and nonenzymatic) during high temperature.