Luminous Fungi

According to Wassink (1978), about 40 species of luminous fungi are known in nine genera (Table 9.1). Some species have multiple synonyms, which often cause confusions in their identification. 

Efforts by various investigators to demonstrate a luciferin-luciferase reaction with luminous fungi were uniformly unsuccessful until Airth and McElroy (1959) obtained a positive result. Airth s group studied further details of the luciferin-luciferase reaction using the luciferin preparation obtained from Armillaria mellea and the luciferase preparation obtained from a species identified by them... 

Airth, R. L., and McElroy, W. D. (1959). Light emission from extracts of luminous fungi./. Bacteriol. 77 249-250. 

Intensity of luminescence of cultures A. isolated in Krasnoyarsk area in 2007 was higher in comparison with the cultures from the Mushrooms Collection of BIN. We studied the effect of different concentrations (from 10 6 mg/mL to 1 mg/mL) of organic and inorganic toxicants on culture luminescence of 3 species of luminous fungi A. borealis, A. mellea and L. japonicus. It was shown that the mushroom A. mellea were more sensitive to action of toxicants than A. borealis and L. japonicus. The minimal concentration of benzoquinone resulted in a 21 % decrease in luminescence in comparison with the initial value, and a decrease in luminescence on 73 % was found at higher concentrations. The lowest concentration of copper ions which could be determined using this system was 10 5 mg/mL (19 % decrease in luminescence and a concentration 10"4 mg/mL caused a 33 % reduction of luminescence in comparison with the initial value) (Fig. 1,2). Lyophilized bioluminescent bacterial biosensors are popular nowadays because they are very sensitive even to micro-quantities of toxicants, and are very simple to... 

The emission spectrum of three luminous fungi, Armillaria mellea, Mycena polygramma, and Omphalia flavida were found to be so nearly identical that the light-emitting molecule must be considered as probably the... 

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