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Information about Bioluminescence

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Omphalotus nidiformis, Lawson, New South Wales
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Omphalotus nidiformis, glowing with the lights off
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism as the result of a chemical reaction during which chemical energy is converted to light energy. Its name is a Hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence may be generated by symbiotic organisms carried within a larger organism. It is generated by an enzyme-catalyzed chemoluminescence reaction, wherein the pigment luciferin is oxidised by the enzyme luciferase. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is involved in most instances. The chemical reaction can occur either within or outside of the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon.

Characteristics of the phenomenon

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Image of bioluminescent red tide event of 2005 at a beach in Carlsbad California showing brilliantly glowing crashing waves containing billions of Lingulodinium polyedrum dinoflagellates.
Bioluminescence is a form of luminescence, or "cold light" emission; less than 20% of the light generates thermal radiation. It should not be confused with fluorescence, phosphorescence or refraction of light.

Ninety percent of deep-sea marine life is estimated to produce bioluminescence in one form or another. Most marine light-emission belongs in the blue and green light spectrum, the wavelengths that can transmit through the seawater most easily. However, certain loose jawed fish emit red and infrared light.

Non-marine bioluminescence is less widely distributed, but a larger variety in colours is seen. The two best-known forms of land bioluminescence are fireflies and New Zealand glow worms. Other insects, insect larvae, annelids, arachnids and even species of fungi have been noted to possess bioluminescent abilities.

Some forms of bioluminescence are brighter (or only exist) at night, following a circadian rhythm.

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Artistic rendering of bioluminescent Antarctic krill (watercolor by Uwe Kils)

Adaptations for bioluminescence

There are four main accepted theories for the evolution of bioluminescent traits:

Camouflage

For more details on this topic, see .

Attraction

Bioluminescence is used as a lure to attract prey by several deep sea fish such as the anglerfish. A dangling appendage that extends from the head of the fish attracts small animals to within striking distance of the fish. Some fish, however, use a non-bioluminescent lure.

The cookiecutter shark uses bioluminescence for camouflage, but a small patch on its underbelly remains dark and appears as a small fish to large predatory fish like tuna and mackerel. When these fish try to consume the "small fish", they are eaten by the shark.

Dinoflagellates have an interesting twist on this mechanism. When a predator of plankton is sensed through motion in the water, the dinoflagellate luminesces. This in turn attracts even larger predators which will consume the would-be predator of the dinoflagellate.

The attraction of mates is another proposed mechanism of bioluminescent action. This is seen actively in fireflies who use periodic flashing in their abdomens to attract mates in the mating season. In the marine environment this has only been well-documented in certain small crustacean called ostracod. It has been suggested that pheromones may be used for long-distance communication, and bioluminescent used at close range to "home in" on the target.

It is possible that some mushrooms attract insects using bioluminescence so that the insects will help disseminate the fungus' spores into the environment. However, there has been no documentation of this suggestion.

Repulsion

Certain squid and small crustaceans use bioluminescent chemical mixtures, or bioluminescent bacterial slurries in the same way as many squid use ink. A cloud of luminescence is expulsed, confusing or repelling a potential predator while the squid or crustacean escapes to safety. Every species of firefly has larvae that glow to repel predators.

Communication

Bioluminescence is thought to play a direct role in communication between bacteria (see quorum sensing). It promotes the symbiotic induction of bacteria into host species, and may play a role in colony aggregation.

Illumination

While most marine bioluminescence is green to blue, the Black Dragonfish produces a red glow. This adaptation allows the fish to see red-pigmented prey, which are normally invisble in the deep ocean environment where red light has been filtered out by the water column.

Biotechnology

Bioluminescent organisms are a target for many areas of research. Luciferase systems are widely used in the field of genetic engineering as reporter genes (see picture left). Luciferase systems have also been harnessed for biomedical research using bioluminescence imaging.

Vibrio symbiosis with numerous marine invertebrates and fish, namely the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid (Euprymna scolopes), are key experimental model for symbiosis, quorum sensing, and bioluminescence.

The structure of photophores, the light producing organs in bioluminescent organisms, are being investigated by industrial designers.

Some proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence include:
  • Christmas trees that do not need lights, reducing danger from electrical fires
  • glowing trees to line highways to save government electricity bills
  • agricultural crops and domestic plants that luminesce when they need watering
  • new methods for detecting bacterial contamination of meats and other foods
  • bio-identifiers for escaped convicts and mental patients
  • detecting bacterial species in suspicious corpses
  • novelty pets that bioluminesce (rabbits, mice, fish etc.)

Organisms that bioluminesce

All cells produce some form of bioluminescence within the electromagnetic spectrum, but most are neither visible nor noticeable to the naked eye. Every organism's bioluminescence is unique in wavelength, duration, timing and regularity of flashes. Below follows a list of organisms which have been observed to have visible bioluminescence.

Non-marine organisms

Fish

Marine invertebrates

Plankton and microbes

See also

External links

Light is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light). In a scientific context, the word "light" is sometimes used to refer to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
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Plantae
  • Chromalveolata
  • Heterokontophyta
  • Haptophyta
  • Cryptophyta
  • Alveolata

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    • A hybrid word is a word which etymologically has one part derived from one language and another part derived from a different language.

    Common hybrids

    The most common form of hybrid word in English is one which combines etymologically Latin and Greek parts.
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    Greek}}} 
    Writing system: Greek alphabet 
    Official status
    Official language of:  Greece
     Cyprus
     European Union
    recognised as minority language in parts of:
     European Union
     Italy
     Turkey
    Regulated by:
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    Latin}}} 
    Official status
    Official language of: Vatican City
    Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
    Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
    Roman Catholic Church
    Language codes
    ISO 639-1: la
    ISO 639-2: lat
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    symbiosis (from the Greek: συμ, sym, "with"; and βίοσίς, biosis, "living") can be used to describe various degrees of close relationship between organisms of different species.
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    Chemiluminescence (sometimes "chemoluminescence") is the emission of light (luminescence) without emission of heat as the result of a chemical reaction. Given reactants A and B, with an excited intermediate ◊, we have:

    [A

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    luciferin. Color coding: yellow=sulfur; blue=nitrogen; black=carbon; red=oxygen; white=hydrogen.]] Luciferins (from the Latin lucifer, "light-bringing" [1] ) are a class of light-emitting biological pigments found in organisms capable of bioluminescence.
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    Beta oxidation is the process by which fatty acids, in the form of Acyl-CoA molecules, are broken down in the mitochondria and/or in peroxisomes to generate Acetyl-CoA, the entry molecule for the Krebs Cycle.

    Occurs in mitochondrial matrix.
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    Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (i.e. accelerate) chemical reactions.[1] In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products.
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    Luciferase is a generic name for enzymes commonly used in nature for bioluminescence. The name itself is derived from Lucifer, which means light-bearer. The most famous one is firefly luciferase (EC 1.13.12.7 ) from the firefly Photinus pyralis.
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    Adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) is a multifunctional nucleotide that is most important as a "molecular currency" of intracellular energy transfer. In this role, ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism.
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    Bacteria

    Phyla

    Actinobacteria
    Aquificae
    Chlamydiae
    Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi
    Chloroflexi
    Chrysiogenetes
    Cyanobacteria
    Deferribacteres
    Deinococcus-Thermus
    Dictyoglomi
    Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria
    Firmicutes
    Fusobacteria
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    For a non-technical introduction to the topic, see .
    A gene is a locatable region of genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, which is associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions and/or other functional sequence regions.
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    An operon is a functioning unit of key nucleotide sequences including an operator, a common promoter, and one or more structural genes, which are controlled as a unit to produce messenger RNA (mRNA), in the process of protein transcription.
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    Luminescence is also the title of an album by singer Anggun.
    Luminescence is light not generated by high temperatures alone. It is different from incandescence, in that it usually occurs at low temperatures and is thus a form of cold body radiation.
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    list of sources of light, including both natural and artificial sources, and both processes and devices.

    This is an incomplete list. Please add to this list if you are aware of an omission.
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    Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted from the surface of an object which is due to the object's temperature. Infrared radiation from a common household radiator or electric heater is an example of thermal radiation, as is the light emitted by a glowing
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    Fluorescence is a luminescence that is mostly found as an optical phenomenon in cold bodies, in which the molecular absorption of a photon triggers the emission of another photon with a longer wavelength.
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    Phosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs.
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    Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly seen when a wave passes from one medium to another. Refraction of light is the most commonly seen example, but any type of wave can refract when it interacts with a medium, for
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    Deep sea fish is a term for fish that live below the photic zone of the ocean. Examples include the lanternfish, flashlight fish, cookiecutter shark, bristlemouths, and anglerfish.
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    The term blue may refer to any of a number of similar colours. The sensation of blue is made by light having a spectrum dominated by energy in the wavelength range of about 440–490 nm.
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    Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colors.
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    Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other.
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    Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of ~3.5%, or 35 parts per thousand. This means that every 1 kg of seawater has approximately 35 grams of dissolved salts (mostly, but not entirely, the ions of sodium chloride: Na
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    Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 625–750 nm.
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    Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of visible light with the longest wavelength.
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    Lampyridae
    Latreille, 1817

    Subfamilies

    Cyphonocerinae
    Lampyrinae
    Luciolinae
    Ototetrinae
    Photurinae
    and see below
    Genus incertae sedis:
    Pterotus

    Lampyridae
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    Anthem
    "God Defend New Zealand"
    "God Save the Queen" 1


    Capital Wellington

    Largest city Auckland
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