A bioluminescence assay for aldehyde dehydrogenase activity.

The aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) family of enzymes is critical for cell survival and adaptation to cellular and environmental stress. These enzymes are of interest as therapeutic targets and as biomarkers of stem cells. This article describes a novel, homogeneous bioluminescence assay to study the activity of the ALDH enzymes. The assay is based on a proluciferin-aldehyde substrate that is recognized and utilized by multiple ALDH enzyme isoforms to generate luciferin. A detection reagent is added to inactivate ALDH and generate light from the luciferin product. The luminescent signal is dependent on the ALDH enzyme concentration and the incubation time in the ALDH reaction; moreover, the luminescent signal generated with the detection reagent is stable for greater than 2 h. This assay provides many advantages over standard NADH fluorescence assays. It is more sensitive and the signal stability provided allows convenient assay setup in batch mode-based high-throughput screens. The assay also shows an accurate pharmacological response for a common ALDH inhibitor and is robust, with a large assay window (S/B=64) and Z'=0.75.

N-Alkylated 6'-aminoluciferins are bioluminescent substrates for Ultra-Glo and QuantiLum luciferase: new potential scaffolds for bioluminescent assays.

A set of 6'-alkylated aminoluciferins are shown to be bioluminescent substrates for Ultra-Glo and QuantiLum luciferases. These studies demonstrate that both the engineered and wild-type firefly luciferases tolerate much greater steric bulk at the 6' position of luciferin than has been previously reported. The nature of the alkyl substituent strongly affects the strength of the bioluminescent signal, which varies widely based on size, shape, and charge. Several compounds were observed to generate more light than the corresponding unsubstituted 6'-aminoluciferin. Determination of Michaelis-Menten constants for the substrates with Ultra-Glo indicated that the variation arises primarily from differences in V max, ranging from 1.33 x 10 (4) to 332 x 10 (4) relative light units, but in some cases K m (0.73-10.8 microM) also plays a role. Molecular modeling results suggest that interactions of the side chain with a hydrogen-bonding network at the base of the luciferin binding pocket may influence substrate-enzyme binding.