The luciferases of the railroad worm Phrixotrix (Coleoptera: Phengodidae) are the only beetle luciferases that naturally produce true red bioluminescence. Previously, we cloned the green- (PxGR) and red-emitting (PxRE) luciferases of railroad worms Phrixotrix viviani and P. hirtus[OLE1]. These luciferases were expressed and purified, and their active-site properties were determined. The red-emi...

Firefly luciferase is used widely as a reporter enzyme for studies of gene regulation and expression. The recent development of new technologies that combine luciferase reporter technology and digital imaging microscopy has enabled multiple measurements of gene expression in the same living cell. Although this approach has already provided new insights about expression dynamics, its future util...

A cDNA library was constructed from firefly (Photinus pyralis) lantern poly(A)+ RNA, using the Escherichia coli expression vector lambda gt11. The library was screened with anti-P. pyralis luciferase (Photinus luciferin:oxygen 4-oxidoreductase, EC 1.13.12.7) antibody, and several cDNA clones expressing luciferase antigens were isolated. One clone, lambda Luc1, contained 1.5 kilobase pairs of cD...

Luciferase is used as a reporter enzyme to estimate gene expression in prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells because the amount of luciferase present is correlated with light intensity in the presence of excess luciferin (1). Furthermore, its sensitivity and range of linear responses are superior to those of other typical reporters (2). When the luciferase gene containing a target promoter region is ...

Procedures and conditions have been established such that the unstable enzyme-bound flavin intermediate produced in the bacterial luciferase reacti~ can be isolated as approximately 70% of the flavin product, the remaining being the final product, FMN. The structure of the intermediate is proposed to be that of a luciferase-bound 4a,5-dihydroflavin-4a-hydroxide. The intermediate has a half-life...

Immune responses to expressed foreign transgenes continue to hamper progress of gene therapy development. Translated foreign proteins with intracellular location are generally less accessible to the immune system, nevertheless they can be presented to the immune system through both MHC Class I and Class II pathways. When the foreign protein luciferase was expressed following intramuscular deliv...

We constructed a non-defective bovine adenovirus type 3 recombinant (BAd3-Luc) containing the firefly luciferase gene inserted in the early region 3 (E3) of the BAd3 genome. Deletion of a 696 bp XhoI-NcoI E3 segment and insertion of the luciferase gene in E3 was confirmed by Southern blot analyses. Luciferase was expressed in Madin-Darby bovine kidney cells infected with BAd3-Luc as measured by...