Synthesis of active firefly luciferase by in vitro translation of RNA obtained from adult lanterns.

Poly (A)+ RNA was isolated from the lanterns of adult fireflies, Photinus pyralis. The Poly (A)+ RNA was translated in a cell-free translation mixture from rabbit reticulocytes and the synthesis of enzymatically active firefly luciferase was demonstrated. The translation products were immunoprecipitated with anti-luciferase and then subjected to SDS gel electrophoresis. It was shown that a newly synthesized polypeptide exhibited an identical electrophoretic mobility as the purified enzyme.