Team:Cambridge/Bioluminescence/Bacterial Luciferases
From 2010.igem.org
Project Vibrio: Introduction
Project Vibrio was designed to complement Project Firefly, by using bacterial lux operons to do what had been impossible with firefly luciferases
- Substrate production in E. coli, avoiding the need to add luciferin
- Emission of blue light
Pathway
Bacterial lux operons emit light using five enzymes:
- luxA and luxB form the luciferase of the system, they emit light using the substrate tetradecanal
- luxC, luxD and luxE are involved in the biosynthesis of tetradecanal from readily available substrates
Bioluminescent species
The Cambridge team is looking into these bacterial luciferases:
- Vibrio fischeri forms symbioses with squid to prevent the squid from casting a shadow on moonlit nights. Due to this their lux proteins are non-functional above 30 degrees
- Vibrio (formerly Photobacterium) phosphoreum emits a very blue light, perhaps partly through its use of [http://partsregistry.org/Part:BBa_K216007 lumazine]