SummaryBetaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (BADH) catalyzes the last step in the plant biosynthetic pathway that leads to glycinebetaine. Rice plants (Oryza sativa L.}, albeit considered a typical non-glycinebetaine accumulating species, have been found to express this enzyme at low levels. This observation evokes an interest in phylogenic evolution of the enzyme in the plant kingdom. It is reported here that rice plants possess the ability to take up exogenously added betaine aldehyde through the roots and convert it to glycinebetaine, resulting in an enhanced salttolerance of the plants. A gene encoding a putative BADH from the rice genome was also cloned and sequenced. The gene was found to contain 14 introns, and the overall nucleotide sequence of the coding region is c. 78% identical to that of the barley BADH cDNA. Cloning of a partial BADH cDNA from rice was accomplished by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The nucleotide sequence of the cloned fragment was found to be identical to the corresponding exon regions of the rice genomic BADH gene. The deduced amino acid sequences of rice and barley BADH both contain a C-terminal tripeptide SKL, a signal known to target preproteins to microbodies. This localization was confirmed by an immuno-gold labeling study of transgenic tobacco harboring barley cDNA, which showed BADH protein inside peroxisomes. Northern blot analysis revealed that the level of BADH mRNA is salt-inducible.

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Timely and nondestructive monitoring of leaf area index (LAI) using remote sensing techniques is crucial for precise and efficient management of crops. In this paper, a new spectral index (SI) for estimating LAI of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is proposed on the basis of field hyperspectral measurements. A simple index based on the empirical relationships between LAIs and SIs of all available two-waveband combinations from hyperspectral data is developed by considering the difference between reflectance values at 760 and 739 nm (DSIR760-R739 = R760 -R739). Among published and newly developed SIs, DSIR760-R739 exhibited a significant and strong linear relationship with LAI OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 5330 and showed outstanding performance in LAI assessments. The permissible bandwidths for broad-band DSIR760-R739 investigated using simulated reflectance were 5 nm for both 760 and 739 nm center wavelengths. The results indicate that the linear regression model based on the narrow-band and broad-band DSIR760-R739 is a simple but accurate method for timely and nondestructive monitoring of LAI.

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