Response to Flooding

Prolonged flooding or water-logging creates anaerobic conditions for the sub-surface parts of the plant and synthesis of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) helps the plant to generate requisite energy anaerobically. Anaerobic environment induces synthesis of a set of new proteins analogous to the heat-shock proteins.

These proteins are, however, different from hsp's. As with the heat-shock system, anaerobic response represses the synthesis of pre-existing types of proteins and induces the synthesis of the Anaerobic Response Proteins (ANP's). Five of the ANP's are enzymes of the glycolytic pathway.