Luciferase and its New Applications in Biotechnology

Luciferase and its substrate (luciferin) are responsible for bioluminescence in living organisms. All known luciferases are oxygenases and they oxidize the luciferin using molecular oxygen, producing light as a result of oxidation. Luciferases are classified into four types based on the organisms from which they originated: Coelenterate luciferase, Bacterial luciferase, Dinoflagellate luciferase, and Firefly luciferase, they are quite different biochemically and genetically and have been derived from distinct evolutionary origins. Nowadays luciferase is used in biotechnology as an important enzyme and its new applications are developing. These applications are: 1- Imaging of different cells and tissues by changing their property of light emission, 2- Used as biological detector in the study of genes expression through simultaneous expression with luciferase gene, 3- Determining the activity of different gene promoters by putting luciferase gene under the control of the promoter, and 4- Production of biosensors for detecting poisonous compounds, heavy metals (such as Cadmium and Mercury), toluene and its derivatives like TNT as well as measuring intracellular calcium changes and ATP