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: The functioning of bioluminescent systems in most of the known marine organisms is based on the oxidation reaction of the same substrate—coelenterazine (CTZ), catalyzed by luciferase. Despite the diversity in structures and the functioning mechanisms, these enzymes can be united into a common group called CTZ-dependent luciferases. Among these, there are two sharply different types of the system organization—Ca2+-regulated photoproteins and luciferases themselves that function in accordance with the classical enzyme–substrate kinetics. Along with deep and comprehensive fundamental research on these systems, approaches and methods of their practical use as highly sensitive reporters in analytics have been developed. The research aiming at the creation of artificial luciferases and synthetic CTZ analogues with new unique properties has led to the development of new experimental analytical methods based on them. The commercial availability of many ready-to-use assay systems based on CTZ-dependent luciferases is also important when choosing them by first-time-users. The development of analytical methods based on these bioluminescent systems is currently booming. The bioluminescent systems under consideration were successfully applied in various biological research areas, which confirms them to be a powerful analytical tool. In this review, we consider the main directions, results, and achievements in research involving these luciferases.

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Nowadays luciferases are effectively used as analytical instruments in a great variety of research fields. Of special interest are the studies dealing with elaboration of novel analytical systems for the purposes of medical diagnostics. The ever-expanding spectrum of clinically important analytes accounts for the increasing demand for new techniques for their detection. In this chapter we have made an attempt to summarize the results on applications of luciferases as reporters in binding assays including immunoassay, nucleic acid hybridization assay, and so on. The data over the last 15 years have been analyzed and clearly show that luciferase-based assays, due to extremely high sensitivity, low cost, and the lack of need for skilled personnel, hold much promise for clinical diagnostics.

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