Characterization of Underexplored Luciferases for Reporter Applications

Bioluminescence is abundant in nature, found across kingdoms of life and in varied landscapes. Reporters leveraging bioluminescence have become integral to research in the biosciences, but current commercial systems have been derived from only a handful of natural luciferases. This project centered on broadly characterizing a panel of native luciferases of fungal and marine origin with the aim of assessing them for potential as a reporter scaffold. The objective and outcome were preliminary data on baseline characteristics and recommendations for engineering directions.