Split-luciferase complementary assay: applications, recent developments, and future perspectives

Bioluminescent systems are considered as potent reporter systems for bioanalysis since they have specific characteristics, such as relatively high quantum yields and photon emission over a wide range of colors from green to red. Biochemical events are mostly accomplished through large protein machines. These molecular complexes are built from a few to many proteins organized through their interactions. These protein-protein interactions are vital to facilitate the biological activity of cells. The split-luciferase complementation assay makes the study of two or more interacting proteins possible. In this technique, each of the two domains of luciferase is attached to each partner of two interacting proteins. On interaction of those proteins, luciferase fragments are placed close to each other and form a complemented luciferase, which produces a luminescent signal. Split luciferase is an effective tool for assaying biochemical metabolites, where a domain or an intact protein is inserted into an internally fragmented luciferase, resulting in ligand binding, which causes a change in the emitted signals. We review the various applications of this novel luminescent biosensor in studying protein-protein interactions and assaying metabolites involved in analytical biochemistry, cell communication and cell signaling, molecular biology, and the fate of the whole cell, and show that luciferase-based biosensors are powerful tools that can be applied for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.