BIOLUMINESCENS

Aniket Makwana FS2324-368

 What is
Bioluminescence ?
The term bioluminescence is a combination of the words "bios" which means life and
"lumen" which means light.
Bioluminescence in living things requires a chemical reaction, but unlike that of a burning
wood, it involves the production of light without producing a burning heat. Fascinating
isn’t it ?

So Now let me ask you a Question where do we find Bioluminescence ?

What Organism have this unique ability ?
Does bioluminescence really have any application or is it only a eye catching
phenomenon ?

Let us All Dive deep into it .

Some Bioluminescent Organism and Plant

• Lantern Fish (Diaphus sp) found in the red sea , has

light producing photophores along its ventral surface &
a Nasal a light organ that acts like headlight .

• Jellyfish bioluminesense is used for defence against

predators. Jellyfish such as comb jellies produce bright
flashes to startle a predator.

• Firefly's are the most common bioluminescent

organism that everyone has seen at least once in their
life .

• There are a lot of bioluminescent bacteria such as

Bioluminescent Vibrionaceae, Shewanellaceae and
Enterobacteriaceae

• There are some algae which show this characteristic

Eg Bioluminescent Dinoflagellate
Let us now see how these organism produce their
own light !
Molecular Explanation of Bioluminescence: After the
luciferin molecule reacts with oxygen, an oxidation
occurs. After this oxidation, the molecule becomes
excited and releases the energy it has loaded as light.
This reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme luciferin.
Following studies on luciferin molecule in 1940s and
50s it was revealed that this chemical is an ATP
dependent light emitting molecule without heat
production . However, the light release here differs
from the process occurring in fluorescence. In
fluorescence, the light that provides stimulation in
terms of energy in the molecule is released when the
excitation ends, while in bioluminescence, light is
released during the conversion of D-luciferin to
oxyluciferin by the activity of components such as
oxygen, ATP and magnesium ion and luciferase
enzyme . In other words, bioluminescence refers to the
production of light without the need for an external
light source.
 Why so many animals in ocean are
Bioluminescent ?

• Sunlight is dim or does not even reach oceans depth .

• Bioluminescence is a very important component of marine
ecology
• Deep ocean is completely dark environment , so light
becomes like treasure here , Thus Bioluminescence may
be provide a Survival advantage , for helping organism
find food , communicate, assist in reproduction and
providing defence mechanism .
 Uses of Bioluminescence

The Functions of Bioluminescence are really

useful for :
• Defence
• Feeding
• Mating
• Mimicry
 Use of Bioluminescence in defence

• The Sea FireFly is a small crustacean living in sediment . At

rest it emits a dull glow but when distributed it draws away
leaving a cloud of shimmering blue light to confuse predator .
During World War 2 it was gathered and dried for use by the
Japanese military as a source of light during clandestine
operations .
 Use of Bioluminescence in Mimicry

Female Photuris Fireflies sometimes mimic the light pattern of

another firefly . Photunis , to attract its male prey . In this way
they obtain food and defensive chemicals named LUCIBIFAGINS ,
which Photuris cannot synthesis
 Use of Bioluminescence in Feeding
The Bioluminescent Animal use their light to lure prey towards their
mouth .
Eg : Angler Fish & Dragon Fish .
Uses of Bioluminescence in Medical
Research:
Drug Discovery: Bioluminescence is becoming an important component of
drug discovery and as an example imaging of the activation state of an
androgen receptor with a genetically encoded nanosensor can be screened
by this methodology . Such a technology attracts interest but there are still
various unknown aspects of the subject and further research may provide
information on different components of bioluminescence such as patterns
of emission Although bioluminescence from original sources are important
for medical research, new bioluminescence emitting combinations
including engineered railroad worm luciferase shows promising results
since they provide augmented thermostability, attenuated bioluminescence
decay period and higher penetration to bacterial cell membranes .
 Infectious Diseases and Microbiology

Infectious Diseases and Microbiology: A new area where bioluminescence is

used is the detection of pathogenic microorganisms in the urine sample. In
routine clinical procedures, there is a urine culture process that takes
approximately 48 hours to detect urinary tract infection. However, instead of
this time-consuming and sometimes misdiagnosed procedure, two new
technologies have been developed; tube bioluminescence extinction
technology urine (TuBETUr) and cellphone-based UTI bioluminescence
extinction technology (CUBET). With these techniques, the diagnosis of
Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida
albicans has been confirmed . Bioluminescence measurements can find certain
study areas for practical used such as assessment of hand hygiene against
bacteria or to evaluate cross contamination
 Cancer
Research
Cancer Research: Bioluminescence is also widely used in cancer research.
Cancer research has shown that circular RNAs, abbreviated as circular RNAs,
play a role in the regulation of cancer development. Xie et al. (2020) used
mouse xenograft and bioluminescence imaging to evaluate the clinical relevance
of cirSHKBP1 in vivo . Some methods of cancer treatment also involve bone
marrow transplantation. Therefore, evaluating the success of this transplantation
is crucial. Research on this subject is supported with light coming from
bioluminescence. Oliveira et al (2021) used grafting of hematopoietic stem cells
from young and old mice in a bone marrow transplant model . In another study
on cancer research, bioluminescence imaging was used to determine antitumor
activity in a mouse xenograft model for aggressive acute myeloid leukaemia .
Bioluminescence is also used together with immunohistochemistry when the
tumour grows or metastasises after the treatment and to decide whether the
administration will work or not in various cancer treatments .
 Cardiovascular and Respiratory
Research
A blockage in the coronary vessels feeding the heart muscle causes the
myocardial muscle to enter an ischemic state and to suffer reversible or
permanent damage. Although vascular intervention is more common,
intramyocardial injection options have been tried for regeneration of the
myocardium. However, there are limits for the effectiveness and
permanence of this injection. Bioluminescence has been used to show that
fluorescently labeled cardiomyocytes are homogeneously distributed on the
28th day of the surgery, using special needles developed by bioengineering
and Adenovirus . Closely related with cardiovascular system is the
pulmonary system. Diseases such as pneumonia can lead to death which
was commonly observed in the covid-19 pandemic. Imaging of the
pulmonary tissue and progress of infection in lungs is very informative in
such research. Establishing a pneumonia in mice was performed with
bioluminescent Streptococcus pneumoniae in a study. Therefore,
bioluminescence was used to evaluate bacterial burden in these
experimental diseases progress
 Reference

https://jag.journalagent.com/ejm/pdfs/EJM-59862-REVIEW_ARTICLE-DAGLI_GUL.pdf
https://www.scribd.com/presentation/444238153/Bioluminescence
THANK YOU