Bioluminescence is light emission based on the luciferin-luciferase enzymatic reaction in living organisms. Optical signals from bioluminescence (BL) reactions are available for bioanalysis and bioreporters for gene expression, in vitro, in vivo, and ex vivo bioimaging, immunoassay, and other applications. Although there are numerous bioanalysis methods based on BL signal measurements, the BL signal is measured as a relative value, and not as an absolute value. Recently, some approaches have been established to completely quantify the BL signal, resulting in, for instance, the redetermination of the quantum yield of the BL reaction and counting the photon number of the BL signal at the single-cell level. Reliable and reproducible understanding of biological events in the bioanalysis and bioreporter fields can be achieved by means of standardized absolute optical signal measurements, which is described in an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) document.
Keywords: bioluminescence; imaging; optical reference light source; optical signal; standardization.