PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Kaskova, Zinaida M. AU - Dörr, Felipe A. AU - Petushkov, Valentin N. AU - Purtov, Konstantin V. AU - Tsarkova, Aleksandra S. AU - Rodionova, Natalja S. AU - Mineev, Konstantin S. AU - Guglya, Elena B. AU - Kotlobay, Alexey AU - Baleeva, Nadezhda S. AU - Baranov, Mikhail S. AU - Arseniev, Alexander S. AU - Gitelson, Josef I. AU - Lukyanov, Sergey AU - Suzuki, Yoshiki AU - Kanie, Shusei AU - Pinto, Ernani AU - Di Mascio, Paolo AU - Waldenmaier, Hans E. AU - Pereira, Tatiana A. AU - Carvalho, Rodrigo P. AU - Oliveira, Anderson G. AU - Oba, Yuichi AU - Bastos, Erick L. AU - Stevani, Cassius V. AU - Yampolsky, Ilia V. TI - Mechanism and color modulation of fungal bioluminescence AID - 10.1126/sciadv.1602847 DP - 2017 Apr 01 TA - Science Advances PG - e1602847 VI - 3 IP - 4 4099 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/4/e1602847.short 4100 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/4/e1602847.full SO - Sci Adv2017 Apr 01; 3 AB - Bioluminescent fungi are spread throughout the globe, but details on their mechanism of light emission are still scarce. Usually, the process involves three key components: an oxidizable luciferin substrate, a luciferase enzyme, and a light emitter, typically oxidized luciferin, and called oxyluciferin. We report the structure of fungal oxyluciferin, investigate the mechanism of fungal bioluminescence, and describe the use of simple synthetic α-pyrones as luciferins to produce multicolor enzymatic chemiluminescence. A high-energy endoperoxide is proposed as an intermediate of the oxidation of the native luciferin to the oxyluciferin, which is a pyruvic acid adduct of caffeic acid. Luciferase promiscuity allows the use of simple α-pyrones as chemiluminescent substrates.