Free Radical Participation in Bacterial Bioluminescence

Abstract
The metastable intermediate II produced on reaction of bacterial luciferase with reduced flavin mononucleotide and O2, reacts with any of several stable free radicals to produce bioluminescence. The bioluminescence spectrum is very similar to that from the well-studied intermediate II and aldehyde reaction, and the number of photons per luciferase molecule reacted is at least 40% of the aldehyde reaction.