An important protection mechanism in resurrection plants is the up-regulation or induction of free radical scavenging enzymes to quench the reactive oxygen species  formed during the desiccation process (Sgherri et al., 1994; Sherwin and Farrant, 1998). These proteins are considered to be ‘house-keeping’ protectants (Illing et al., 2005). As shown in Fig. 4, among the biological processes that were up-regulated in response to desiccation is 'oxidation-reduction process'. Indeed Ingle et al. (2007) confirmed using western blotting analysis that the antioxidant proteins  2‐Cys‐Prx and GDP‐mannose‐3′, 5′‐epimerase they observed in 2DE were up-regulated in response to desiccation.