title: Beyond D-luciferin: expanding the scope of bioluminescence imaging in vivo.
abstract: The light-emitting chemical reaction catalyzed by the enzyme firefly luciferase is widely used for noninvasive imaging in live mice. However, photon emission from the luciferase is crucially dependent on the chemical properties of its substrate, D-luciferin. In this review, we describe recent work to replace the natural luciferase substrate with synthetic analogs that extend the scope of bioluminescence imaging.
authors: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors: Spencer T
authors: ST
authors: Adams
authors: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA. Electronic address: Stephen.miller@umassmed.edu.
authors: Stephen C
authors: SC
authors: Miller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D052160:Benzothiazoles / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D002470:Cell Survival; D008156:Luciferases / Q000378:metabolism; D049449:Luminescence; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D052160:Benzothiazoles; C532924:D-luciferin; D008156:Luciferases