Bioluminescence

You most likely know that it means the ability of some living things to emit light – to glow. Examples from nature abound: glow worms, fireflies, fungi, jellyfish, even cats. Cats, you say? Well yes, some very special cats. You see, the gene for the bioluminescence of jellyfish has been isolated and introduced into all sorts of things as a marker. Researchers can take a desirable gene, say a gene that confers disease resistance in some plant, splice it to the jellyfish bioluminescence gene and introduce it into another plant. We’re talking GMO here – genetic engineering, as it were. Researchers can than tell whether the gene transfer was successful. That is, if the GMO plant glows, then the gene for disease resistance must have also made it into the GMO plant. It’s basically using bioluminescence as a marker of successful gene transfer.

And this brings me back to cats. Yes, glow-in-the-dark kittens, actually. When our son was looking for a residency program position during his final year as a medical student, he visited a number of academic medical centers including the Mayo Clinic. It turns out that researchers there had inserted the gene for bioluminescence into a litter of cat embryos. The medical staff that was showing the prospective resident interviewees around took them on a tour of the facility including a visit to the glow-in-the-dark kittens. Our son recounted this tour to us, and I asked, “Were they using this as a marker so that they could introduce some other gene that would perhaps cure some feline illness?” He laughed out loud, “No, they were just showing off!” It turns out that they were actually testing a gene from Rhesus macaques that might protect cats from feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) – not just “showing off.”

There has been a lot of vaccine nonsense spread by silly people including, unfortunately, a few doctors out of the clinical mainstream. One bit of such nonsense is the claim that the COVID vaccines contain luciferase. Luciferin, you may recall, is the compound that enables fireflies to flash; it’s a small molecule named after Lucifer, bearer of light. In the presence of the enzyme luciferase and oxygen, a chemical reaction between luciferin and oxygen takes place and generates light. So, the bogus claim is that luciferase in the vaccines makes people glow in the dark. Even if part of this idiocy were true (it isn’t), injecting luciferase into people wouldn’t make them glow because people don’t have luciferin. An enzyme without its substrate(s) doesn’t do squat. I guess the folks who spread this nonsense don’t have a very good background in either organic chemistry or biochemistry. Sigh.

Follow me just a little bit further down this particular mental rabbit hole. Over the last few years, a couple of friends have asked me about the merits of OTC “nutraceuticals” like Prevagen. We all want to be at our cognitive best, after all, and coffee isn’t for everyone. Enter the unregulated marketplace of nutritional supplements! Prevagen is a dietary supplement produced by Quincy Bioscience that is heavily promoted in TV commercials. The “active ingredient” is apoaequorin – a protein found in, wait for it, bioluminescent jellyfish. Now, apoaequorin itself has nothing to do with bioluminescence – just to avoid conflation of two different things here. The makers of products like Prevagen don’t have to do any studies that show their product does anything for you. They simply have testimonials. Of course, you see Harry and Louise on TV telling you how they noticed better memory after taking Prevagen for only a few weeks. That’s an anecdote – not a scientific study. What you don’t get to see is the many Bob and Mary stories telling you that they too took Prevagen and it didn’t do diddly for them. I love science.

Researchers recently studied cognitive performance in a group of adults aged 40-91 who had concerns about their memory. They were given the apoaequorin dose equivalent to a daily Prevagen pill. They took that dose for 90 days, and their scores on tests of cognitive performance before and after showed nothing. Imagine that! As early as 2012, the FDA warned the manufacturer about making false claims regarding their product. In 2020, a class action suit was brought against the company by folks who had bought into the false claims regarding Prevagen. Justice may be slow, but it does eventually come.

Me, I’m contemplating another feline in my life. Maybe I can find a black one that glows so that I can find it more easily in the dark.