Plants with genetically encoded autoluminescence.
Tatiana MitiouchkinaAlexander S MishinLouisa Gonzalez SomermeyerNadezhda M MarkinaTatiana V ChepurnyhElena B GuglyaTatiana A KarataevaKseniia A PalkinaEkaterina S ShakhovaLiliia I FakhranurovaSofia V ChekovaAleksandra S TsarkovaYaroslav V GolubevVadim V NegrebetskySergey A DolgushinPavel V ShalaevDmitry ShlykovOlesya A MelnikVictoria O ShipunovaSergey M DeyevAndrey I BubyrevAlexander S PushinVladimir V ChoobSergey V DolgovFyodor A KondrashovIlia V YampolskyKaren S SarkisyanPublished in: Nature biotechnology (2020)
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.