ISSN Print 2500–1094
ISSN Online 2542–1204
BIOMEDICAL JOURNAL OF PIROGOV UNIVERSITY (MOSCOW, RUSSIA)
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Similarities and differences between the Chaetopterus variopedatus polychaete luciferases depending on the type of habitat
About authors
1 Institute of Biophysics, Krasnoyarsk Science Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
2 Shemyakin–Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, Russia
3 Pacific State Medical University, Vladivostok, Russia
4 Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed: Aleksandr S. Shcheglov
Miklukho-Maklaya, 16/10, Moscow, 117997; ur.liam@trakuj
About paper
Acknowlegements: we would like to thank Anderson Oliveira, Professor, and Jeremy Mirza, junior researcher at the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo for assistance in collecting the biomass of Brazilian polychaetes, and Kirill Vinnikov, Director at the Institute of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Federal University, for advice on the Chaetopterus taxonomy.
Author contribution: Purtov KV, Petushkov VN, Rodionova NS — luciferase extraction; Chepurnykh TV — DNA extraction, PCR; Kozhemyako VB — biomass collection and preparation for luciferase extraction; Zagitova RI, Shcheglov AS — studying the properties of luciferases; Ziganshin RH — mass spectrometry; Tsarkova AS — overall project management.
Received: 2021-09-28
Accepted: 2021-10-12
Published online: 2021-10-26
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The marine polychaete Chaetopterus variopedatus (Renier) (family Chaetopteridae) is a cosmopolitan species complex, consisting of distinct populations/ subspecies. The worms release glowing (460 nm) clouds of mucus when disturbed, and their parapodia often glow brightly. Currently, it is still unclear how exactly the bioluminescence system of these polychaetes functions. It has been previously assumed that the C. variopedatus luciferase may be used for detection of ferroptosis, the recently explored pathway of programmed cell death, resulting from accumulation of the ferrous ions. This study was aimed to extract and characterize the C. variopedatus luciferases, as well as to compare luciferases obtained from C. variopedatus of different populations. When extracting the enzyme responsible for bioluminescence from the frozen samples of Brazilian C. variopedatus using the improved method, two active luciferases, L1 and L2, were obtained. We assumed that one of the listed above luciferases was responsible for luminescence of the mucus and the other luciferase was responsible for luminescence in parapodia, and used the method for the distinct samples of mucus and parapodia of the living Far Eastern C. variopedatus. However, mucus of the latter turned out to be non-glowing. It is shown that luciferase L2 is responsible for luminescence in the parapodia of the C. variopedatus polychaete, since this luciferase has been found in the total biomass of Brazilian polychaetes and parapodia of Far Eastern polychaetes. Luminescence of the Brazilian C. variopedatus mucus is attributed to the functioning of luciferase L1, which is lacking in the mucus of the Far Eastern subspecies. The range of luciferase isoforms in polychaetes C. variopedatus depends on the place of origin.
Keywords: bioluminescence, luciferase, polychaetes, Chaetopterus variopedatus, marine worms