volume 15, page 742 (2023)Cite this article
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Organisms that glow are perhaps eerie. Vadim Viviani ponders on the luciferin–luciferase systems responsible for their intriguing bioluminescence.
The first luciferin to be isolated and crystallized was that from the marine ostracod Cypridina hilgendorfii, by Osamu Shimomura and co-workers in the 1950s3, though the first one to have its chemical structure determined, by Emil White and collaborators in 1961, was that of fireflies4 (pictured). It took thousands of North American Photinus pyralis fireflies to be sacrificed in order to get just a few milligrams of pure compound to structurally characterize it. Today, this highly fluorescent benzothiazolic carboxylic compound is extensively used for bioanalytical purposes.
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Viviani, V.R. Looking into luciferin.
Nat. Chem. 15, 742 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-023-01185-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-023-01185-2
