TY - JOUR TI - Building customizable auto-luminescent luciferase-based reporters in plants AU - Khakhar, Arjun AU - Starker, Colby G AU - Chamness, James C AU - Lee, Nayoung AU - Stokke, Sydney AU - Wang, Cecily AU - Swanson, Ryan AU - Rizvi, Furva AU - Imaizumi, Takato AU - Voytas, Daniel F A2 - Amasino, Richard A2 - Hardtke, Christian S A2 - Amasino, Richard VL - 9 PY - 2020 DA - 2020/03/25 SP - e52786 C1 - eLife 2020;9:e52786 DO - 10.7554/eLife.52786 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.52786 AB - Bioluminescence is a powerful biological signal that scientists have repurposed as a reporter for gene expression in plants and animals. However, there are downsides associated with the need to provide a substrate to these reporters, including its high cost and non-uniform tissue penetration. In this work we reconstitute a fungal bioluminescence pathway (FBP) in planta using a composable toolbox of parts. We demonstrate that the FBP can create luminescence across various tissues in a broad range of plants without external substrate addition. We also show how our toolbox can be used to deploy the FBP in planta to build auto-luminescent reporters for the study of gene-expression and hormone fluxes. A low-cost imaging platform for gene expression profiling is also described. These experiments lay the groundwork for future construction of programmable auto-luminescent plant traits, such as light driven plant-pollinator interactions or light emitting plant-based sensors. KW - bioluminescence KW - luciferase KW - Nicotiana benthamiana KW - hormone reporters KW - expression reporter KW - plant synthetic biology JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -