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Why do bacteria emit light? Grzegorz Wegrzyn*1; Agata Czyz2; Borys Wrobel3 (1) Department of Molecular Biology, University of Gdansk, Kladki 24, PL 80-822 Gdansk, Poland; (2) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (affiliated with UG), Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Gdansk, Poland; (3) Marine Biology Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sw. Wojciecha 5, 81-347 Gdynia, Poland      *(wegrzyn@biotech.univ.gda.pl) We found that luxA, luxB and luxD mutants of the marine bacterium Vibrio harveyi are significantly more sensitive to UV irradiation when cultivated in the dark after irradiation than when cultivated under a white fluorescent lamp. This difference was much less pronounced in the wild-type (luminescent) V. harveyi strain. After UV irradiation, the percent of surviving Escherichia coli cells that bear V. harveyi genes responsible for luminescence was significantly higher than that of non-luminescent E. coli, irrespective of the subsequent cultivation conditions. Moreover, we demonstrated that luminescence of V. harveyi can be stimulated by UV-irradiation even in diluted cultures, under conditions when light emission by these bacteria is normally impaired due to quorum sensing regulation. We propose that luminescent bacteria have an internal source of light, which could be used in DNA repair by photoreactivation process. This finding suggests that the need to repair DNA could have been a strong selection pressure for bioluminescence in deep-sea bacteria. Perhaps one of the options for such bacteria was to create their own light to ensure efficient DNA repair. [Talk: wegrzyn.grzego.23191]

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