Coelenterazine (Synonyms: Luciferin (Oplophorus), Preluciferin (Watasenia))

Coelenterazine is a substrate of various luciferases such as Renilla luciferase (Rluc) and Gaussia luciferase (Gluc), and is also a cofactor of aequorin. It is widely used and can be used for detection Calcium concentration in living cells, gene reporter assays, BRET (Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer) studies, ELISA, HTS, and chemiluminescence detection of ROS levels in tissues or cells^[1].

In vitro, coelenterazine enabled the dynamic monitoring of the RAW 264.7 cell oxidative burst ^[2].Coelenterazine chemiluminescence did not depend on the activity of cell-derived myeloperoxidase.It is a very sensitive and specific superoxide anion chemiluminescent probe^[3]. Coelenterazine is a more reliable probe, although susceptible to storage-dependent high background chemiluminescence, but does not require prereductio^[4].

In vivo, there were early, preclinical, changes in the localization and magnitude of coelenterazine chemiluminescent foci^[2]. Commercially available coelenterazine（soluble in DMSO） is a sensitive substrate for in vivo bioluminescence imaging of coelenterazine luciferase^[5].

References:
[1]Jiang T, Du L, Li M. Lighting up bioluminescence with coelenterazine: strategies and applications. Photochem Photobiol Sci. 2016 Apr;15(4):466-80.
[2] Bronsart L, Nguyen L, et al. Reactive Oxygen Species Imaging in a Mouse Model of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Mol Imaging Biol. 2016 Aug;18(4):473-8.
[3]Teranishi K. Non-invasive and accurate readout of superoxide anion in biological systems by near-infrared light. Anal Chim Acta. 2021 Sep 22;1179:338827.
[4] Kervinen M, Pätsi J, Finel M, Hassinen IE. Lucigenin and coelenterazine as superoxide probes in mitochondrial and bacterial membranes. Anal Biochem. 2004 Jan 1;324(1):45-51. 
[5]Lucas M, Solano F. Coelenterazine is a superoxide anion-sensitive chemiluminescent probe: its usefulness in the assay of respiratory burst in neutrophils. Anal Biochem. 1992 Nov 1;206(2):273-7.