Gaussia luciferase blood level as an index of cell growth and proliferation

Luciferase-mediated bioluminescence is widely used as a reporting tool for monitoring various biological processes in vitro and in vivo. Firefly (1), Renilla (2), and Gaussia (3,4) luciferases are currently used as reporters for monitoring of numerous processes in different fields (5), including immunology (6) oncology (7), virology (8), and neuroscience (9). After systemic substrate injection, a cooled charge-coupled device (CCD) camera can be used for the localization of the luciferase photon signals in vivo. In addition, the naturally secreted and non-ATP dependent Gaussia luciferase (Gluc) expression levels can be easily quantified in cell-free conditioned medium by adding its substrate coelenterazine and measuring emitted photons using a luminometer.