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Updated: Oct 18, 2025
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Bioluminescent Bacterial Imaging In Vivo
Published on: November 4, 2012
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Imaging the oxygen wave with a single bioluminescent bacterium
Yaohua Li1, Sa Wang1, Xinyu He1
1State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, ChemBIC (Chemistry and Biomedicine Innovation Center), Nanjing University 210023 Nanjing Jiangsu China wei.wang@nju.edu.cn.
Chemical Science
|October 4, 2021
Summary
Bioluminescent bacteria visualize oxygen dynamics, revealing spontaneous waves at interfaces. This discovery impacts understanding cell cultures and bioassays in microtiter plates.
Area of Science:
- Biophysics
- Microbiology
- Analytical Chemistry
Background:
- Bioluminescence (BL) from bacteria like *P. phosphoreum* is oxygen-dependent.
- Visualizing oxygen gradients is crucial for understanding biological and chemical processes.
- Microtiter plates are widely used in biological assays, but their oxygen dynamics are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a method for spatiotemporally visualizing oxygen concentration using bioluminescent bacteria.
- To investigate the dynamic evolution of oxygen at interfaces.
- To uncover the causes of unexpected oxygen fluctuations in microtiter plates.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a monolayer of bioluminescent bacteria (*P. phosphoreum*) as biosensors.
- Employed time-lapsed imaging to capture dynamic changes in bioluminescence intensity.
- Applied a physical model combining diffusion and Michaelis-Menten kinetics for quantitative analysis.
Main Results:
- Successfully visualized heterogeneous oxygen distribution and its dynamic evolution.
- Discovered spontaneous and stochastic oxygen waves at the solution-substrate interface.
- Identified micro-convection due to evaporation and thermal fluctuations as the cause of oxygen waves in microtiter plates.
Conclusions:
- Bioluminescent bacterial monolayers offer a novel tool for oxygen sensing.
- The study reveals previously unknown oxygen wave phenomena in undisturbed solutions.
- Findings provide critical insights into heterogeneity in cell cultures and bioassays conducted in microtiter plates.
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