Rational Design and Mutagenesis of Fungal Luciferase from Neonothopanus nambi

The recently described bioluminescent system from fungi has great potential for developing highly efficient tools for biomedical research. Luciferase enzyme is one of the most crucial components of this system. The luciferase from Neonothopanus nambi fungus belongs to the novel still undescribed protein family. The structure data for this protein is almost absent. A detailed study of the N. nambi luciferase properties is necessary for the improvement of analytical methods based on the fungal bioluminescent system. Here we present the positions of key amino acid residues and their effect on enzyme function described using bioinformatic and experimental approaches. These results are useful for further fungal luciferase structure determination.