Reverse Protein Engineering Of Firefly Luciferase

The study explored Reverse Protein Engineering to address the size limitations of firefly luciferase, a bioluminescent protein used in biological tagging. The researchers aimed to reduce the protein's size from 550 amino acids to less than 80 while retaining its function. This involved subcloning a core section of the protein, attaching a DNA library to create peptide variants, and screening for bioluminescent properties. Although the technique successfully reduced the protein's size, further research was needed to confirm the bioluminescent activity of the peptide variants and to explore different amino acid ranges for improved outcomes.