Lecture 10: Optics 3 Flashcards
What is luminescence?
- Luminescence –the emission of light at low temperatures(cf incandescence)
- Luminescence is a light emission which represents an excess over the thermal radiation, and lasts longer than the period of electromagnetic oscilation.
What are the types of luminescence?
- Chemiluminescence
- Bioluminescence
- Electroluminescence
- Photoluminescence
- Phosphorescence
- Fluorescence
- Radioluminescence
- Thermoluminescence
What is chemiluminescence and how does it wrok?
Chemi-luminescence –the emission of light as a result of a chemical reaction.
The excited state created by the chemical reaction is transferred to a dye molecule, or fluorophore, and subsequently fluoresces back to the ground state.
Whats an example of bioluminescence?
Aequorin
A protein produced by the Aequor(ae) genus of jellyfish that produces a blue light on binding Ca2+.
What do creatures use bioluminescence for?
- Bioluminescence occurs when living creaturesconvert chemical energy to light energy.
- Used for communication, food location, prey attraction, camouflage, defense.
- An estimated 90% of deep sea creatures produce bioluminescence.
- Most emit blue or green light (440 -479 nm).
What is another bioluminescence tool used commonly?
The green fluorescent protein (GFP) of Aequoreavictoriais now widely used as an in vivoreporter for monitoring dynamic processes in cells or organisms.
Describe how aeqorin functions;
Ca binds
Chromophore becomes excited
Enzyme catalyzes the breakdown of luciferin, releasing light
What can aeqorin be used for then?
As a DYNAMIC Ca reported in isolated tissues
What is good about using Aequorin as a Ca reporter over fluorescent tags?
- Bioluminescence does not require light excitation like fluorescent probes or proteins.
- Therefore it does not induce autofluorescence, photobleaching, or biological degradation.
Non toxic
Doesnt bind other divalent cations
Doesnt interfere with the intracellular Ca2+ concentration buffer system even when microinjected at high concentrations
Has a low affinityfor Ca2+(Kd= 10 μM) & is therefore a good sensor in the range of biological [Ca2+]variations.
What are some of the specific features of Aeqorin as a dynamic Ca reporter?
- Emits bioluminescence (L/Lmax) on binding Ca2+ .
- Molecule has 3 Ca2+ binding sites (2/3 reqdto emit 1 photon light).
- L/Lmaxincreases monotonically from 10-7to 10-4M [Ca2+ ].
- Not effected by photo bleaching.
What are the problems with Aeqorin?
- Not good for low [Ca2+ ].
- Difficult to load into cells.
- Needs to be evenly distributed
Aequorin signals are very difficult to detect because of aequorin’s low light quantum yield (i.e. the number of emitted photons per protein that bind Ca2+).
List fast and slow photoluminescence techniques;
- Phosphorescence–slow photoluminescence
* Fluorescence-fast photoluminescence
What is the key to photoluminescence?
•Luminescence stimulated by light absorption in UV-Vis-NIR spectral region.
What does photoluminescence represent?
•Representsany process in which material absorbs electromagnetic energy at a certain wavelength and then emits part of it at a different (usually longer) wavelength. -usually an excitation source emits in UV & the photoluminescence occurs in Vis or NIR.
Describe the time scale of phosphorescence;
•Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. •The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with “forbidden” energy state transitions in quantum mechanics.