bioluminescence

This article outlines what causes bioluminescence in fireflies, how it works, and applications of luciferase and luciferin in biomedical research.

A succinct history of researchers in the field of biophotonics.

A collection of thumbnails of bioluminescent marine organisms.

This image gallery contains thumbnails of over 30 of the most common cell lines, labeled with a variety of fluorophores using both traditional staining methods as well as immunofluorescence techniques.

GFP is a fluorescent protein isolated from coelenterates. Its role is to transduce the blue chemiluminescence of the protein aequorin into green fluorescent light by energy transfer. The gene for GFP has been isolated and has become a useful tool for making chimeric proteins of GFP linked to other proteins where it functions as a fluorescent protein tag. As a noninvasive fluorescent marker in living cells, it allows for a wide range of applications where it may function as a cell lineage tracer, reporter of gene expression, or as a measure of protein-protein interactions.

These pages illustrate aspects of fluorescence spectroscopy that are useful for elucidating structural and dynamic properties of proteins. Fluorescent techniques can provide parameters consistent with crystallographic results. The various environments of the fluorophores of a folded protein and the unique stereochemistry of the polypeptide chain affect the fluorophores in many ways which can be used to characterize and to follow changes in the folded conformation in solution. Fluorescence-based techniques can give information about a protein's conformation, binding sites, solvent interactions, degree of flexibility, internal motions, rotational diffusion coefficient, and many other physicochemical parameters.

Underwater animals using bioluminescence as camoflauge.