Oceanography | Vol.32, No.4
Throughout history, humans have been
fascinated with the “living light” produced
by luminescent organisms. Today, the
glimmering power of bioluminescence
has been harnessed for lifesaving uses
in medicine, from lighting up structures
inside the brain to illuminating the pro-
gression of cancer cells.
One of the first accounts of biolumines-
cence and health was written in 77 CE. In
Historia Naturalis, Roman physician and
naturalist Pliny the Elder described medic-
inal substances derived from aquatic ani-
mals, including pulmo marinus. A jellyfish
now known as Pelagia noctiluca, Latin for
“night light of the sea,” the species emits
a glowing substance from the outer edge
of its bell. When boiled in water or taken
in wine, Pliny believed, pulmo marinus
treated “the gravell and the stone.”
Also in the first century, Greek physi-
cian and botanist Pedanius Dioscorides
posited in De Materia Medica, an herbal
medicine encyclopedia he penned, that
“pulmo marinus being beaten small whilst
it is new and so applied, doth help such as
are troubled with chillblanes and such as
ye have goute.”
Some two thousand years have passed
since the time of Pliny and Dioscorides.
Only recently, however, have researchers
discovered exactly how bioluminescence
is created, let alone how to employ it in
cures for disease.
The sparkle of marine bioluminescence
occurs in species from fish in the deep
ocean to jellyfish and dinoflagellates in the
shallows, among others. They create light
through the interaction of the enzymes
luciferase and luciferin (the terms are
derived from the Latin word lucifer—light-
bringer), or by hosting light-emitting bacte-
ria. Biofluorescence, sometimes confused
with bioluminescence, is released when
an animal such as a jellyfish or eel absorbs
light and re-emits it in a different color.
Now, “a vast range of analytical tech-
niques has been developed based on
bioluminescence,” write Zinaida Kaskova,
Aleksandra Tsarkova, and Ilia Yampolsky
of the Russian Academy of Sciences and
the Pirogov Russian National Research
Medical University in a 2016 paper in
Chemical Society Reviews.
“Immunoassays,
gene
expression
assays, drug screening, bioimaging of live
organisms, cancer studies, and the inves-
tigation of infectious diseases,” the scien-
tists state, are just the beginning of a tale
of 1,001 lights, as the researchers refer to
the growing number of bioluminescence
discoveries with applications in medicine.
A REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE
An early chapter in the tale of 1,001 lights,
according
to
neurobiologist
Vincent
Pieribone, director of the John B. Pierce
Laboratory at the Yale University School
of Medicine, is green fluorescent protein
(GFP). GFP is found in the crystal jelly-
fish Aequorea victoria. This and other
fluorescent proteins have revolutionized
research in fields from immunology to
neuroscience.
Many organisms are now known to
manufacture fluorescent proteins. “These
proteins are extending the boundaries of
science, including allowing researchers to
understand, manipulate, and interact with
the living brain,” says Pieribone.
When
scientists
develop
methods
that allow them to see things that were
once invisible, research takes a giant
leap forward. For example, in the seven-
teenth century, Anton van Leeuwenhoek
invented the microscope. A new world
opened.
Scientists
could
suddenly
observe previously unknown bacteria and
blood cells. So it is with fluorescent pro-
teins, Pieribone says.
BRIGHT GREEN EEL PATENT
Based on a bright green fluorescent pro-
tein found in two fish—the false moray
eels
Kaupichthys
hyoproroides
and
Kaupichthys n. sp.—Pieribone’s team
was awarded a patent for a new method
of detecting bilirubin in blood or urine.
Bilirubin is produced in bone marrow cells
and in the liver as the end product of red
blood cell (hemoglobin) breakdown.
High levels of bilirubin may indicate
liver damage or other disease. Molecular
Tools LLC, a biotech company in Frederick,
Maryland, is working with the scientists to
develop new ways of testing for bilirubin
based on these proteins.
Bioluminescent,
Biofluorescent Species
Light the Way to New
Biomedical Discoveries
By Cheryl Lyn Dybas
Oceanography | Vol.32, No.4
Image of the bioluminescence of
Chaetopterus, the parchment tubeworm.
Image credit: David Liittschwager, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography
The bioluminescent crystal jellyfish
Aequorea victoria. Image Credit:
Sierra Blakely, Wikimedia Commons
Bioluminescent,
Biofluorescent Species
Light the Way to New
Biomedical Discoveries
By Cheryl Lyn Dybas
RIPPLE MARKS: THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY