We introduced the potato proteinase inhibitor II (PINII) gene (pin2) into several Japonica rice varieties, and regenerated a large number of transgenic rice plants. Wound-inducible expression of the pin2 gene driven by its own promoter, together with the first intron of the rice actin 1 gene (act1), resulted in high-level accumulation of the PINII protein in the transgenic plants. The introduced pin2 gene was stably inherited in the second, third, and fourth generations, as shown by molecular analyses. Based on data from the molecular analyses, several homozygous transgenic lines were obtained. Bioassay for insect resistance with the fifth-generation transgenic rice plants showed that transgenic rice plants had increased resistance to a major rice insect pest, pink stem borer (Sesamia inferens). Thus, introduction of an insecticidal proteinase inhibitor gene into cereal plants can be used as a general strategy for control of insect pests.

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A rice (Oryza sativa) seed plasma-membrane calcium-dependent serine/threonine protein kinase (CDPK) has been partially purified.Comparing results in seeds that were treated with and without the plant hormone gibberellin (CA) for 10 min showed that rice CDPK was highly induced by GA. After separating solubilized membrane proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate-gel electrophoresis, followed by renaturation, a radiolabeled phosphoprotein band of approximately 58 k D was detected, and it was apparently produced by autophosphorylation. There are five aspects of the rice CDPK that show similarity t o mammalian protein kinase C (PKC) and t o other plant CDPKs: (a) Histone l l l S and PKC peptide-ser25 (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31) [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. (d) Addition of calmodulin has no effect on the activity of the enzyme; however, the CDPK is inhibited by the calmodulin antagonists trifluoperazine and W-7. (e) The rice CDPK reacts with a mammalian anti-PKC antibody i n immunoblotting analysis. However, there is one major difference between the rice CDPK and other CDPKs: the rice CDPK is induced by CA, whereas no mammalian PKC or other plant CDPKs are known to be induced by any h o r m o n e.

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