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Bacterial bioluminescence assay for bioanalysis and bioimaging

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Abstract

Bioluminescence occurs through a chemical reaction in organisms that spontaneously produce light. Luminescent bacteria are unique among bioluminescent organisms. Their bioluminescence intensity is an indicator of their metabolic activity, which can directly reflect the influence of environmental factors on cell viability. Moreover, the whole bioluminescence process is totally gene encoded without the addition of extra substrates. As a result, bacterial bioluminescence has been a powerful tool for whole-cell biosensors and bio-reporters in bioanalysis and bioimaging. This review aims to cover the applications of wild-type and recombinant luminescent bacteria to detect the toxicity of environmental pollutants and biological molecules. The bacterial bioluminescence analytical assay has characteristics such as high sensitivity, short-term detection, and easy operation. Meanwhile, due to the development of gene engineering and optical technology, bacterial luciferase as a reporter protein has been successfully expressed in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, tissues, and organs of animals. The major applications for bacterial luciferase-based bioluminescence imaging, such as infectious diseases, cancer therapy, and stem cell tracing, are discussed in this review.

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Funding

This work received financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 21874070 and 21925403).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, ChemBIC (Chemistry and Biomedicine Innovation Center), Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, Jiangsu, China

    Yaohua Li, Xinyu He, Weinan Zhu, Haoran Li & Wei Wang

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  1. Yaohua Li
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  5. Wei Wang
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Correspondence to Wei Wang.

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Li, Y., He, X., Zhu, W. et al. Bacterial bioluminescence assay for bioanalysis and bioimaging. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 75–83 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-021-03695-9

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