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Light of fireflies illuminates medical diagnostics

The enzyme causing the light was co-opted to emit a signal when it comes in contact with target proteins.

By Stephen Feller

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, July 22 (UPI) -- Researchers added a chemical tag to luciferase, the enzyme that produces fireflies' light, using it to target biological molecules and emit a light when they are found.

The light from luciferase is powerful enough to be seen with the naked eye, which researchers said could allow for uses such as finding tumors without the need for large, expensive devices.

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"You can think of the tagged luciferase as a cyborg molecule," said Kai Johnsson, a professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in a press release. "Half bio, half synthetic. How could you make luciferase sensitive to the presence of another protein just through mutations? It's a lot of work. With this chemical trick, all we have to worry about is designing an appropriate tag that can recognize the target protein."

Researchers attached a chemical tag to luciferase that blocks it from producing light. When the tag detects its target protein, such as on the outside of a cancer cell, it attaches to the target and removes the block, allowing luciferase to emit light.

Although they wrote in the study that this use of luciferase is limited to specific types of proteins, but that the concept "can be exploited to create proteins with entirely new functionalities."

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The study is published in Nature Communications.

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