How can you improve your reporter gene assays?

Firefly and Renilla Luciferase structure

Gene reporter assays are widely used in research and Drug Discovery. The development of such cell lines is often time-consuming and costly, sometimes upwards of 5-20k € per cell line. And once these cell lines are finally validated, why jeopardize your results with cheap and low-end detection kits? They could impact the reproducibility of your experiments in unintended and unanticipated ways. BPS Bioscience has developed two reliable and extremely powerful luciferase detection kits: the ONE-Step™ Luciferase Assay System (#60690) and the TWO-Step Luciferase Assay System (#60683).

One-Step™ Luciferase Assay System

Luciferase is a class of oxidative enzymes that catalyze reactions giving off light, used as a readout for various biological processes such as gene expression, signal transduction or cell trafficking. The ONE-Step™ Luciferase Assay System has been designed to be used in high-throughput, sensitive quantitation of firefly luciferase activity in mammalian cell culture.

Composed of a Luciferase substrate and reagent buffer, this system forms a perfect working solution for efficient cell lysis and accurate luciferase quantification. Widely used in the scientific area, the ONE-Step™ Luciferase Assay System offers several characteristics over competing products:

  • Sensitivity – highly sensitive detection to firefly luciferase activity (fig1)
  • Stability – the signal output is stable for over two hours, providing flexibility regarding incubation time (fig 2)
  • Convenience – simple one-step, homogeneous protocol
  • High-throughput – minimized handling steps, supporting high-throughput screening applications
  • Compatibility – works well with a variety of common media containing 0-10% serum and phenol red

OneStep Luciferase Assay System for Drug Discovery gene reporter assays.

OneStep Luciferase Assay System for Drug Discovery applications - Bright and stable luminescence

Despite the fact that Firefly Luciferase has already been used in a wide range of studies concerning biological responses, various factors, such as total cell number and transfection efficiency, can impact luciferase light intensity and not reflect the real activity of your target compound in your experimental system.

To improve the accuracy of the firefly luciferase reporter assay, BPS Bioscience have added a normalizing transfection control, the renilla luciferase reporter, for more reliable and accurate assay results. While the firefly luciferase will be a reporter of your experimental promoter activity, the renilla luciferase will be your transfection efficiency reporter to normalize your results, in the same sample.

TWO-Step Luciferase Assay System

Innovative solution for drug discovery gene reporter assays - Dual Firefly and Renilla luciferase systemThis innovative Assay System is designed to be used for high-throughput, rapid quantitation of both firefly and renilla luciferases from a single sample in mammalian cell culture.

Adding sequentially each specific reaction buffer and substrate will allow the lysis and measurement of the firefly luciferase luminescence first (fig 3A), and after, measurement of renilla luciferase (fig 3B) luminescence for normalization and better accuracy of your results (fig 3C).

In addition to normalizing and increasing the accuracy of your data, the Dual Luciferase Assay System offers several advantages such as:

  • Sensitivity – highly sensitive detection of firefly luciferase activity and renilla luciferase activity (fig 3A-B)
  • Stability – the luciferase signal output is stable for over an hour, providing flexibility with regard to screening applications.
  • High-throughput – simple homogeneous protocol minimizes handling steps to support high-throughput screening applications.
  • Compatibility – works well with a variety of common media containing 0-10% serum and phenol red.

Innovative solution for drug discovery gene reporter assays - Dual Firefly and Renilla luciferase system

Not only do these kits have better luciferase luminescence, they also show high sensitivity, high stability and are suited for high-throughput screening applications, making them ideal for Drug Discovery.


If you liked these assay systems, there are other detection kits or products which might interest you – visit our website for more information, or contact us at any time.

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