Preparation of recombinant firefly luciferase by a simple and rapid expression and purification method and its application in bacterial detection

A simple and rapid expression and purification method of recombinant firefly luciferase was developed for bacteria detection. A modified luciferase gene from North American firefly Photinus pyralis was cloned into pET28a expression vector and the recombinant protein was produced in Escherichia coli BL21. The recombinant luciferase, equipped with a polyhistidine affinity tag, was purified by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC). The approach generated an abundant expression and an efficient purification of a recombinant luciferase with final yield 1.995mg/L of cell culture. Experiments on the recombinant luciferase also showed that the relative light units (RUL) of the enzyme were 5.8×108, and the specific activity was 2.9×1010 RLU/mg. By applying adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence to detection of the coin bacteria using the recombinant protein, the ATP content of bacteria was 9.48×10-16mol/mL, and was identical to the bacteria counts (4500CFU/mL) in order of magnitude. Taken together, our results provided a simple and efficacious method of the preparation of recombinant luciferase, which could be applied in the determination of bacteria via ATP bioluminescence.