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Article: A FIREFLY BY ANY OTHER NAME GLOWS JUST AS BRIGHT LUCIFERASE PROBE SEES REAL-TIME IMAGING OF APOPTOSIS IN DRUG'S PERFORMANCE - NONINVASIVELY.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- December 20, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: David N. Leff , Science Editor
Fireflies aren't flies; they're beetles. Nor do these ubiquitous Lampyridae insects (of which there are 2,000 species worldwide) emit fire when they brighten the summer night with their winking, blinking pinpoints of nearly heatless light. These bioluminescent mating signals cast bluish-green flashes or glows of luciferase reporter or marker molecules - much used by researchers to flag biological materials, mainly genes and their proteins.
Now those misnamed fireflies are shedding light on how to test new therapeutic drugs and treat diseases. Their versatile technique is reported in the Early Edition of PNAS, ...