[Isolation and purification of bacterial luciferase from Photobacterium fischeri for analytical purposes]

A procedure resulting in a highly purified preparation of bacterial luciferase with a high specific activity towards FMNH2 and NADH was developed. Using SDS-electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gel, it was shown that the enzyme has a subunit composition and that its monomers do not contain the luciferase activity. The use of the obtained preparation for determining the content of NADH and FMN by the bioluminescent method allowed to increase its sensitivity up to 10(-18) and 10(-17) moles, respectively.