Plants with genetically encoded autoluminescence.

Mitiouchkina, Tatiana; Mishin, Alexander S; Somermeyer, Louisa Gonzalez; Markina, Nadezhda M; Chepurnyh, Tatiana V; Guglya, Elena B; Karataeva, Tatiana A; Palkina, Kseniia A et al. · Nat Biotechnol · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Autoluminescent plants engineered to express a bacterial bioluminescence gene cluster in plastids have not been widely adopted because of low light output. We engineered tobacco plants with a fungal bioluminescence system that converts caffeic acid (present in all plants) into luciferin and report self-sustained luminescence that is visible to the naked eye. Our findings could underpin development of a suite of imaging tools for plants.

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