Autonomous bioluminescent systems: prospects for use in the imaging of living organisms

Bioluminescent systems are increasingly being used for the development of highly sensitive optical imaging techniques in vivo. However, it is necessary to inject expensive and unstable synthetic substrates (luciferins) before each analysis for most of the systems applied. Autonomous bacterial and fungal bioluminescent systems, that recently have become available for implementation in eukaryotic cells, in our opinion, may be developed into an effective tool in new technologies of bioluminescent imaging.