Microbial contamination is usually analyzed using luciferin-luciferase system of fireflies by the detection of adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP). There is an opportunity to assess the bacterial contamination of various objects based on a quantitative analysis of other nucleotides. In the present study, a bioluminescent enzyme system of luminous bacteria NADH:FMN-oxidoreductase (Red) and luciferase (BLuc) was investigated to understand if it can be used for quantitative measurements of bacterial

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... lls by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and flavin mononucleotide (FMN) detection. To increase the sensitivity of bioluminescent system to FMN and NADH, optimization of assay conditions was performed by varying enzymes and substrates concentrations. The lowest limits of detection were 1.2 nM FMN and 0.1 pM NADH. Escherichia coli cells were used as a model bacterial sample. FMN and NADH extraction was made by destructing cell membrane by ultrasonication. Cell suspension was added into the reaction mixture instead of FMN and NADH, and light intensity depended on number of bacterial cells in the reaction mixture. Centrifugation of sonicated sample as an additional step of sample preparation did not improve the sensitivity of method. The experimental results showed that Red and BLuc system could detect at least 800 thousand bacterial cells mL -1 by determining concentration of NADH extracted from lysed cells, while 3.9 million cells mL -1 can be detected by determining concentration of FMN. Citation: Kirillova M.A., Esimbekova E.N., Ranjan R., Torgashina I.G., Kratasyuk V.A. Bioluminescent system of luminous bacteria for detection of microbial contamination. определения не менее 800 тыс бактериальных клеток в миллилитре путем экстрагирования NADH из разрушенных клеток. При анализе, основанном на определении концентрации FMN в бактериальном образце, чувствительность метода составила 3,9 млн клеток на миллилитр. Ключевые слова: NADH:FMN-оксидоредуктаза, бактериальная люцифераза, бактериальное загрязнение, Escherichia coli.