Optimized application of the secreted Nano-luciferase reporter system using an affinity purification strategy

Secreted Nano-luciferase (secNluc) is a newly engineered secreted luciferase that possesses advantages of high structural stability, long half-life, and glow-type kinetics together with high light emission intensity, and thus would become one of the most valuable tools for bioluminescence assays. However, like other secreted luciferases, secNluc has to mix with the components in the conditioned medium surrounding test cells, or in the biological samples such as blood or urine after being secreted. These components may interfere with secNluc-catalyzed bioluminescence reactions and thus limit the application of the secNluc reporter system. In this study, we first examined the effects of three factors, pH, serum and residual reagents, on secNluc-catalyzed bioluminescence reactions, finding that these factors could interfere with bioluminescence reactions and result in background signal. To resolve these problems, we applied a simple affinity purification strategy in which secNluc was fused with a FLAG-tag, and anti-FLAG magnetic beads were used to catch and transfer the fusion protein to PBST, an optimal buffer for secNluc-catalyzed bioluminescence reactions that was identified in this study. The results indicated that this strategy could not only negate the interferences from serum or residual reagents and enhance the stability of light emission but also greatly increase signal intensity through enzyme enrichment. This strategy may contribute to biomedical studies that utilize secNluc and other secreted luciferases, especially those requiring superior sensitivity, low background noise and high reproducibility.