Determination of pyruvic acid concentration using a bioluminescence system from Photobacterium leiognathi.

A novel, highly sensitive and selective bacterial luminescence method for the detection of pyruvic acid (PA) is reported here. This method is based on a reaction system catalyzed by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) with the bacterial luciferase-FMN:NADH oxidoreductase bioluminescence system in vitro. The reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) involved in the LDH reaction system could be quantitatively analyzed by the bioluminescence system. A good linear relationship between the luminescence intensity and pyruvic acid concentration was exhibited within the range of 0.00014-0.001 mol l(-1), and the pyruvic acid detection limit was found to be 8.537 × 10(-5) mol l(-1). This method was successfully applied to the detection of PA in quail serum with a good recovery of over 70%.