Coelenterazine has been used in conjunction with apoaequorin to measure free Ca⁺⁺. The bioluminescent signal generated makes this method extremely sensitive. Coelenterazine has also been shown to be a useful substrate for Renilla /I>luciferase<.

Due to growing interest in coelenterazine, BIOSYNTH's Research and Development group developed a new procedure for the synthesis of this important compound. Synthesis of coelenterazine is a complex, multi-step process, but the yield is coelenterazine which is very pure and biologically active. BIOSYNTH is making coelenterazine available more economically than it has been in the past, and we hope that this will allow more researchers to use this interesting, bioluminescent molecule.

The firefly luciferase gene has proven to be very useful in reporter gene research and drug discovery assays, when used with luciferin and ATP. Firefly luciferase/luciferin emits light at 560 nm. Renilla luciferase /coelenterazine emits light at 482 nm. Because these two reporter systems emit light at quite different wavelengths, it is possible to use Renilla luciferase/coelenterazine and firefly luciferase/luciferin as a dual reporter system.

We will give a short outline of some interesting applications of coelenterazine.

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