Firefly May Light Way to a Medical Tool

Imagine a romantic, carrot-lit dinner, surrounded by glow-in-the dark vines and maybe a few self-illuminating pumpkins. Researchers say it’s all possible, thanks to the genetic switch that puts the flame in fireflies.

The same switch could someday replace radioactivity as a way to measure chemicals in the blood when detecting liver and heart disorders and to provide a valuable new tool for scientists, according to two professors at the University of California, San Diego.

Don Helinski, a biology professor, and Marlene DeLuca, a chemistry professor, reported their findings recently in a scientific paper. According to their research, scientists could trace the chemicals inside living cells by seeing how much and where they shine, instead of having to kill the cells by breaking them open.

The research involved isolating the light-producing enzyme that makes fireflies glow, called luciferase. The scientists inserted a small amount of the material into bacteria and then followed the instructions to make the enzyme.

Light was not produced until oxygen, a chemical called luciferin and an energy-giving chemical found in all living things, adenosine triphosphate, were added, Helinski said.

DeLuca said they’ve gone through millions of fireflies over the years of research. Ultimately, they say, tiny bacteria factories producing the firefly enzyme would be more efficient and cheaper than spending a penny each for fireflies captured by children in the Oak Ridge, Tenn., area.

Once a plentiful supply of luciferase is available, Helinski and DeLuca hope it will be used as a marker for detecting the activity of individual genes.

From a commercial standpoint, Helinski and DeLuca hope the enzyme will replace radioactive chemicals used in many laboratory tests.

One medical test currently on the market uses luciferase to detect the presence of bacteria in urine.