Chemiluminescence and Bioluminescence Imaging for Biosensing and Therapy: In Vitro and In Vivo Perspectives

Abstract

Chemiluminescence (CL) and bioluminescence (BL) imaging technologies, which require no external light source so as to avoid the photobleaching, background interference and autoluminescence, have become powerful tools in biochemical analysis and biomedical science with the development of advanced imaging equipment. CL imaging technology has been widely applied to high-throughput detection of a variety of analytes because of its high sensitivity, high efficiency and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Using luciferase and fluorescent proteins as reporters, various BL imaging systems have been developed innovatively for real-time monitoring of diverse molecules in vivo based on the reaction between luciferin and the substrate. Meanwhile, the kinetics of protein interactions even in deep tissues has been studied by BL imaging. In this review, we summarize in vitro and in vivo applications of CL and BL imaging for biosensing and therapy. We first focus on in vitro CL imaging from the view of improving the sensitivity. Then, in vivo CL applications in cells and tissues based on different CL systems are demonstrated. Subsequently, the recent in vitro and in vivo applications of BL imaging are summarized. Finally, we provide the insight into the development trends and future perspectives of CL and BL imaging technologies.

SDF-1/CXCR4 Axis-mediated Migration of Systematically Transplanted Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Towards the Injured Spinal Cord in a Rat Model

“…MSCs from GFP-transgenic rats and transfected them with luciferase and then focused on the characteristic migration of MSCs-GFP-Luci to injury sites. The repetitive in vivo bioimaging of luciferase activity could continually monitor the cell distribution, noninvasively, in individual animals in a simple and rapid fashion [52], and provided us with a better perspective on the behavior of transplanted cells.…”

Ultrasound-Enhanced Chemiluminescence for Bioimaging

“…Recently, CL intensity has been further improved by using colloidal enhancers that have enabled improvement to not only imaging and but also therapies. Colloidal enhancers can include gold (Li et al, 2008;Yan et al, 2019), silver (Chen et al, 2007;Haghighi and Bozorgzadeh, 2010), platinum (Xu and Cui, 2007), and magnetic (Yang et al, 2019) nanoparticles (NPs). For in vivo imaging, peroxalate nanoparticles specific are known for their high specificity and selectivity against FIGURE 1 | Schematic representation of (A) the mechanism involved in luciferin-mediated luminescence reaction, and (B) in vivo bioluminescence imaging using an antibody coupled luciferase-luciferin reaction.…”

Promising Applications of AIEgens in Animal Models

“…Here we give one example reported by Zhang et al, in which the AIE‐based chemiluminescent (CL) nanosensor (NTPE‐PH, the aggregated form of TPE‐PH, Figure A) was used for real‐time monitoring of ultratrace 1 O 2 in rats with acute/chronic inflammation. It should be mentioned that CL imaging possesses higher SNR, decreased phototoxicity, and improved tissue‐penetration compared with fluorescence imaging because there is no need for light excitation . TPE‐PH was non‐CL, but bright chemiluminescence could be detected when the aggregated NTPE‐PH responded to 1 O 2 .…”