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BIOLUMINESCENCE

Tiny but bright

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 6, pages 522–523 (2022)Cite this article

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Ten years ago, the engineering of a small luciferase called NanoLuc broke through a common limitation of bioluminescence. Currently the brightest known bioluminescent protein, NanoLuc’s activity has been used across a huge application range — enabling measurements in single cells and in whole living organisms.

The bioluminescent protein luciferase has long been used as a biological tool to analyse the presence of a target without external excitation light. Firefly luciferase was first put into practical use mainly as a reporter for gene expression. Subsequently, luciferases derived from marine organisms, such as Renilla, were used owing to their high emission intensity. However, the luminescence intensity generated by this class of enzymes is limited as it derives from the excitation energy resulting from the oxidation of the substrate luciferin. The generated light intensity is much weaker than that emitted by fluorescent probes, which increases in proportion to the energy of the artificial excitation light. As a result, the application of luciferases in scientific and industrial fields remains limited.

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Fig. 1: NanoLuc’s enzymatic activity and application scope.

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  1. SANKEN, Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

    Takeharu Nagai & Mitsuru Hattori

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  1. Takeharu Nagai
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  2. Mitsuru Hattori
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Correspondence to Takeharu Nagai.

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Nagai, T., Hattori, M. Tiny but bright. Nat Rev Chem 6, 522–523 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-022-00413-6

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