Luminescence bioassays

Bulich, A.A., M.W. Greene, and D.L. Isenberg. 1981. Reliability of the bacterial luminescence bioassay for the determination of toxicity of pure compounds and complex effluents. In D.R. Branson and K.L. Dickson (eds), Aquatic Toxicology and Hazard Assessment Fourth Conference, pp. 338-347. Baltimore, USA ASTM STP737. 

Yuan JL, Wang GL. Lanthanide-based luminescence probes 81. and time-resolved luminescence bioassays. Trac-Trends Analyt. 

De Baeselier P, Schram E. Luminescent bioassay based on macrophage cell lines. Methods Enzymol 1986 133 507-30. 

Until very recently, studies of the use of luminescent lanthanide complexes as biological probes concentrated on the use of terbium and europium complexes. These have emission lines in the visible region of the spectrum, and have long-lived (millisecond timescale) metal-centered emission. The first examples to be studied in detail were complexes of the Lehn cryptand (complexes (20) and (26) in Figure 7),48,50,88 whose luminescence properties have also been applied to bioassay (vide infra). In this case, the europium and terbium ions both have two water molecules... 

Sammes, P.G., and Yahioglu, G. (1996) Modem bioassays using metal chelates as luminescent probes. Nat. Prod. Rep. 13,1-28. 

Other applications dealt with the development of a luciferin ester substrate to measure the luciferase activity in living cells [141], the detection of toxic compounds such as sodium azide, fluoroacetic acid, and antibiotics [142], the development of a biosensor for the determination of bioavailable mercury [143], the use of eukaryotic luciferases as bacterial markers with different colors of luminescence [144], the determination of complement-mediated killing of bacteria [145], and the development of a bioassay for the determination of HIV type 1 virus and HIV-1 Tat protein activity, valuable also for analysis of HlV-inhibi-tory agents [146],... 

Qureshi, A.A., Flood, K.W., Thompson, S.R., Janhurst, S.M., Inniss, C.S., and Rokosh, D.A. Comparison of a luminescent bacterial test with other bioassays for determining toxicity of pure compounds and complex effluents, in Aquatic Toxicology and Hazard Assessment, Pearson, J.G., Foster, R.B., and Bishop, W.E., Eds. (Philadelphia, PA American Society for Testing and Materials, 1982), pp. 179-195. 

The first steps in bypassing of the biological, technological, and financial burden of live stock culturing or maintenance were made more than 20 years ago through the development of a bacterial luminescence inhibition test [34,35] this bioassay is presently known and used worldwide as the Microtox test. The revolutionary principle of this test is that it uses a lyophihzed strain of a (marine) bacterium Photobacterium phosphoreum). This makes the bioassay apphcable anytime, anywhere, without the need for continuous culturing of the test species. 

Ribo, J.M. (1997) Interlaboratory comparison studies of the luminescent bacteria toxicity bioassay, Environmental Toxicology and Water Quality 12 (4), 283-294. 

Ribo, J.M., Yang, J.E. and Huang, P.M. (1989) Luminescent bacteria toxicity assay in the study of mercury speciation, in M. Munawar, G. Dixon, C.I. Mayfield, T. Reynoldson and M.H. Sadar (eds), Environmental Bioassay Techniques and their Application Proceedings of the 1st International Conference held in Lancaster, England, 11-14 July 1988, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands, pp. 155-162. 

Nohava, M., W.R. Vogel, and H. Gaugitisch. 1995. Evaluation of the luminescent bacteria bioassay for the estimation of the toxicological potential of effluent water samples—comparison with data from chemical analyses. Environ. Int. 21 33-37. 

Due to size confinement on electronic interactions and density of phonon states, nano-structured materials exhibit distinct optical, magnetic and thermal properties in comparison with their bulk counterparts. Currently, there is growing interest for understanding how the confinement and other nanoscale mechanisms of electronic interactions in nanophosphors affect luminescence efficiency and photodynamics for such applications as three-dimensional displays, high-performance fight emitting devices, and highly sensitive bioassays. 

Medical applications are so far limited in number, but gadolinium complexes of DTPA and other hgands have become highly important injectible MRI contrast agents (see Metal-based Imaging Agents). The luminescent properties of the lanthanides are becoming exploited in luminescent sensors and bioassays. 

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