The Light of Life
Most recent answer: 10/22/2007
Q:
Are there investigations dealing with bioluminescent organisms or chloroplasts as light sources? Can Bioluminescence give off enough light to be used as a light source?
What hurdles would have to be overcome in order to utilize bioluminescent reations seprate from living organisims? (Imagine the reations occuring in road paint!)
- Cody Whitaker (age 16)
Dongola, IL. USA
- Cody Whitaker (age 16)
Dongola, IL. USA
A:
Cody -
Yes, bioluminescence can be used as a light source. At night, fire flies use it -- an enzyme called luciferase splits a compound and the energy from splitting gives off light. This enzyme has been isolated and is used in biological assays in clinical and pharmaceutical applications.
Also, at night, sometimes if you look in ocean, you will see little jellyfish lighting up. The protein responsible for this has been isolated and optimized so if you shine light of one wavelength (e.g. uv, or blue), it will light up at a longer wavelength -- e.g. green. This is call Green Fluorescent Protein and there are now many variants of it. It is used in many many studies in biology. For example, if you want to know where some protein is, you can "fuse" it with GFP and then as the protein moves around inside a cell, it carries the GFP; you excite with blue light and look at the green light coming out. You can then track where the protein is moving. Clonetech sells GFP and it’s different color varients. In their "Living Colors" PDF brochure, available at:
You can see some pictures of cells with gfp attached to various proteins.
Paul
Yes, bioluminescence can be used as a light source. At night, fire flies use it -- an enzyme called luciferase splits a compound and the energy from splitting gives off light. This enzyme has been isolated and is used in biological assays in clinical and pharmaceutical applications.
Also, at night, sometimes if you look in ocean, you will see little jellyfish lighting up. The protein responsible for this has been isolated and optimized so if you shine light of one wavelength (e.g. uv, or blue), it will light up at a longer wavelength -- e.g. green. This is call Green Fluorescent Protein and there are now many variants of it. It is used in many many studies in biology. For example, if you want to know where some protein is, you can "fuse" it with GFP and then as the protein moves around inside a cell, it carries the GFP; you excite with blue light and look at the green light coming out. You can then track where the protein is moving. Clonetech sells GFP and it’s different color varients. In their "Living Colors" PDF brochure, available at:
You can see some pictures of cells with gfp attached to various proteins.
Paul
(published on 10/22/2007)