Betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (BADH) belongs to the aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH) family, an ancestral group of enzymes responsible for aldehyde detoxification in several organisms. The BADH enzyme catalyzes the irreversible oxidation of betaine aldehyde to glycine betaine (GB) an important osmoptrotector and osmoregulator accumulated in response to cellular osmotic stress. The BADH enzymes h...

The simultaneous determination of betaines, the key compounds for osmotic regulation in plants, was established by capillary electrophoresis (CE). After four betaines, glycine betaine (GB), beta-alanine betaine (AB), proline betaine (PB), and 2-hydroxyproline betaine (HPB), were esterified with p-bromophenacyl bromide, the esters were electrophoresed in 100 mM sodium phosphate at pH 3.0. A low-...

In barley, glycine betaine is a metabolic end product accumulated by wilted leaves; betaine accumulation involves acceleration of de novo synthesis from serine, via ethanolamine, N-methylethanolamines, choline, and betaine aldehyde (Hanson, Scott 1980 Plant Physiol 66: 342-348). Because in animals and microorganisms the N-methylation of ethanolamine involves phosphatide intermediates, and becau...