title: Firefly luciferase luminescence assays using scintillation counters for quantitation in transfected mammalian cells.
abstract: The firefly enzyme luciferase catalyzes the luminescent reaction of luciferin with ATP and oxygen. The luciferase gene has recently been cloned and proposed as a reporter gene in procaryotic and eucaryotic cells. We present here a luciferase activity assay which relies on luminescence detection using a standard scintillation counter. This technique is simple, fast, inexpensive, and still very sensitive: as little as 0.02 pg (250,000 molecules) of enzyme is readily detected. The technique is optimized for the luciferase assay in mammalian cell lysates. Thus, the luciferase gene may become a very useful tool for gene regulation studies.
authors.affiliation: Département de Biologie Moléculaire, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
authors.forename: V T
authors.initials: VT
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Morange
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bensaude
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002021:Buffers; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007739:L Cells / Q000032:analysis; D008156:Luciferases / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics; D008163:Luminescent Measurements; D051379:Mice; D012588:Scintillation Counting; D014162:Transfection
chemical_list: D002021:Buffers; D008156:Luciferases