期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2019
卷号：116
期号：52
页码：26491-26496
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1913616116
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Bioluminescence-based imaging of living cells has become an important tool in biological and medical research. However, many bioluminescence imaging applications are limited by the requirement of an externally provided luciferin substrate and the low bioluminescence signal which restricts the sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution. The bacterial bioluminescence system is fully genetically encodable and hence produces autonomous bioluminescence without an external luciferin, but its brightness in cell types other than bacteria has, so far, not been sufficient for imaging single cells. We coexpressed codon-optimized forms of the bacterial luxCDABE and frp genes from multiple plasmids in different mammalian cell lines. Our approach produces high luminescence levels that are comparable to firefly luciferase, thus enabling autonomous bioluminescence microscopy of mammalian cells.
