Luciferase Plasmid Guide

Background

• Luciferase is the enzyme responsible for the bioluminescence found in a diverse number of organisms, ranging from bacteria to aquatic animals to insects. Luciferase catalyzes the oxidation of its substrate, luciferin, which leads to light emission.

• The robust signal, sensitivity and wide dynamic range of luciferase has made it a common choice in assays for use as a reporter gene, signaling pathway analysis, and miRNA target monitoring. These tables allow you to browse some popular luciferase plasmids in Addgene's collection. The plasmids may contain Firefly luciferase from beetles (Photinus pyralis) or Renilla luciferase from sea pansy (Renilla reniformis).

• Luciferase-containing plasmids are commonly used to investigate the effect of regulatory elements, such as promoters, enhancers and untranslated regions, or the effect of mutations of these regulatory elements on gene expression. Empty vectors for inserting regulatory elements before or after the luciferase ORF can be found below, as well as plasmids that already contain a region of interest before or after luciferase.

• Addgene has many luciferase expression vectors available that are driven by a strong constitutive promoter and can be used to monitor transfection or viral infection efficiency, to study changes in cell physiology, or as a reference level of expression.

• Luciferase can also be used to monitor many cellular processes other than gene expression. For example, a split-luciferase set of vectors can be used to study protein binding between your proteins of choice.

Empty Backbones

Find a reporter construct that will allow you to insert and test your regulatory element of choice.

Regulatory Elements

Browse or use the search box to find a construct that contains your regulatory element of interest.