The excited molecule slowly loses the vibrational and translational energy, most commonly by colliding with surrounding molecules, or a rearrangement of the structure, but sometimes by other methods. If this energy is enough, an electron will be excited from its initial ground state to a higher energy state, with any excess energy causing the molecule to vibrate more or move faster. Fluorescence works when a photon collides with a molecule, causing the molecule to gain energy. So how does this differ from fluorescence? In fluorescence, incident light is merely re-emitted at a different, less energetic wavelength. An example of the luciferin/luciferase reaction. Another example is of deep sea fish which use a similar system to produce light in a lure, attracting prey that they can then eat.įigure 1. A common example of this is in the firefly and similar organisms, as seen in figure 1, where the protein luciferin, and the enzyme luciferase, combine with oxygen and ATP, a source of energy in living organisms, to produce light. So what is bioluminescence? Simply put, it is when a biological organism emits light. This was the first report of bioluminescence. In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder reported that certain jellyfish produced a glowing light. So what makes this such a versatile and important molecule? A Brief Explanation of Bioluminescence and Fluorescence In November 2008, three men, Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien, were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, "for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein". It has found its use in all areas of cellular biology and advances have reached the point where it is the focus of works of art, such as a pet rabbit called Alba, whose fur glowed green under UV light. GFP stands for green fluorescent protein (the official name for the molecule) and is, imaginatively, a protein that fluoresces green in the presence of UV light. Green Fluorescent Protein A molecular tag that can be inserted into genesĪlso available: HTML-only, Chime, and VRML versions. Green Fluorescent Protein - Molecule of the Month 2010 - JMol version
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