ISSN Print 2500–1094
ISSN Online 2542–1204
BIOMEDICAL JOURNAL OF PIROGOV UNIVERSITY (MOSCOW, RUSSIA)
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Bioluminescence: is it possible for a plant?
About authors
1 Laboratory of Chemistry of Natural Compounds,Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow, Russia
2 Total Synthesis Laboratory,Shemyakin–Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
3 Moscow South-West High School No. 1543, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed: Elena Guglya
ul. Ostrovityanova, 1, Moscow, Russia, 117997; moc.liamg@aylguge
About paper
Funding: this work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 14-50-00131).
Acknowledgements: the authors thank Lyudmila Abramova and Nikita Tikhomirov for their assistance in collecting and sorting plant samples. The present research was carried out at the facilities of the Shared Resource Center of Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry.
Contribution of the authors to this work: Guglya EB — preparation of organic extracts of plant samples with BL activity, development and implementation of chromatographic separations, BL analysis, drafting of a manuscript; Kotlobay AA — preparation of organic extracts of plant samples during screening of plants collection, preparation of enzyme extract, BL analysis; Sekretova EK, Volkova PV — collection and taxonomic definition of a collection of plant samples; Yampolsky IV — research planning and organization, data interpretation, editing.
Received: 2017-02-19
Accepted: 2017-04-10
Published online: 2017-06-04
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An extensive collection of plants gathered in the European part of Russia was screened for a substrate of fungal luciferase. This work was inspired by the recently discovered mechanism of bioluminescence in higher fungi and the structural similarity of fungal luciferin with some plant metabolites. Of all studied leaf extracts obtained from 200 different plants, bioluminescent activity was discovered in 10 species. Each of these species contained a plurality of active compounds. All the luminescent substrates were not identical to fungal luciferin (3-hydroxyhispidin) and were chemically unstable, rendering the attempt to isolate individual compounds for further structural characterization yet unsuccessful. This study is the first step towards engineering a self-luminescent plant based on a fungal enzyme-substrate bioluminescent system.
Keywords: fungal bioluminescence, engineered luminescent plants, luciferins, plant methabolites