Luciferases

enzymes that participate in bioluminescence.

Luciferases catalyze the aerobic oxidation of luciferins, the result of which is the conversion of the substrate to the electron-excited state and the release of the excess energy as light quanta. Living organisms store luciferases in photogenic cells or in specialized luminescence organs. Flavoprotein (molecular weight [mol wt], 85,000) is the luciferase in species of Achromobacter. Crayfish of the genus Cypridina contain an albumin (mol wt, 37,000-45,000), and beetles of the genus Photinus contain the luciferase euglobulin (approximate mol wt, 100,000). Even in organisms that contain the same luciferase, such as all species of fireflies, there are differences in luciferase structure and in the optimum conditions for its activity.

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Red-emitting luciferases for bioluminescence reporter and imaging applications.

Despite its difficulties with absolute quantitation, luciferase has been used to monitor ATP changes in a variety of cells, such as HEK-293 cells, cardiomyocytes, and neurons (Brovko, 2010).

Imaging adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

Firefly luciferases are abundantly utilized as gene reporter and catalyze a bioluminescense reaction which are directly detected.

Generation of a novel high-affinity monoclonal antibody on Luciferase from Lampyris turkestanicus

For more than a decade, scientists have made use of luciferase or the genes that encode it.

Following the inner light: glow genes provide revealing pictures of infections

These cells contain luminous materials: luciferin and either luciferase or a luciferin-binding photoprotein.

Bioluminescent organs of two deep-sea arrow worms, Eukrohnia fowleri and Caecosagitta macrocephala, with further observations on bioluminescence in chaetognaths

ATP formed by action of the enzyme label on an acetyl phosphate substrate is measured using the firefly luciferase reaction.

Nucleic acid detection technologies--labels, strategies, and formats

A real revolution has come from our ability to look at how genes work," says Wood, who first basked in the glow of scientific luminosity in 1986 when he and co-workers made the world's first glow-in-the-dark tobacco plants by splicing into the plants a luciferase gene from a firefly.

Beetlejuice genes now in biotechnicolor

In the purification of luciferases A, B, and C (Steps 3-5, below), any side fractions of a target luciferase that contained a different molecular species were combined with a batch of the corresponding luciferase species for further purification.

Isolation and properties of the luciferase stored in the ovary of the scyphozoan medusa periphylla periphylla

Significance of the existence of two different luciferases

Luciferase of the scyphozoan medusa Periphylla periphylla

The enzymatically released luciferin can be quantified by the luciferase reaction.