ArticleScientific reports2020
A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional Characterization of Luciferase in a Brittle Star Indicates Parallel Evolution Influenced by Genomic Availability of Haloalkane Dehalogenase.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Insights into the bioluminescence systems of three sea pens (Cnidaria: Anthozoa): from de novo transcriptome analyses to biochemical assays.Open biology · 2025Article
- Glowing wonders: exploring the diversity and ecological significance of bioluminescent organisms in Brazil.Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2024Review
- Catecholamine Involvement in the Bioluminescence Control of Two Species of Anthozoans.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Violet bioluminescent Polycirrus sp. (Annelida: Terebelliformia) discovered in the shallow coastal waters of the Noto Peninsula in Japan.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Host-specific symbioses and the microbial prey of a pelagic tunicate (Pyrosoma atlanticum).ISME communications · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pyrosomes are tunicates in the phylum Chordata, which also contains vertebrates. Their gigantic blooms play important ecological and biogeochemical roles in oceans. Pyrosoma, meaning "fire-body", derives from their brilliant bioluminescence. The biochemistry of this light production is unknown, but has been hypothesized to be bacterial in origin. We found that mixing coelenterazine-a eukaryote-specific luciferin-with Pyrosoma atlanticum homogenate produced light. To identify the bioluminescent machinery, we sequenced P. atlanticum transcriptomes and found a sequence match to a cnidarian luciferase (RLuc). We expressed this novel luciferase (PyroLuc) and, combined with coelenterazine, it produced light. A similar gene was recently predicted from a bioluminescent brittle star, indicating that RLuc-like luciferases may have evolved convergently from homologous dehalogenases across phyla (Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Chordata). This report indicates that a widespread gene may be able to functionally converge, resulting in bioluminescence across animal phyla, and describes and characterizes the first putative chordate luciferase.
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Registered trials
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