File:Glowing tobacco plant.jpg

Summary
An image of a tobacco plant which has been genetically engineered to express a gene taken from fireflies (specifically: Photinus pyralis) which produces luciferase. The image is an "autoluminograph" produced by placing the plant directly on a piece of Kodak Ektachrome 200 film. When the plant is watered with a luciferin containing nutrient medium, tissue specific luminescence is observed. It is the first representation of a transgenic multicellular organism expressing bioluminescence. This image was first published in a November 1986 issue of the journal Science in a paper titled "Transient and stable expression of the firefly luciferase gene in plant cells and transgenic plants". by David W. Ow, Keith V. Wood, Marlene DeLuca, Jeffrey R. de Wet, Donald R. Helinski and Stephen H. Howell. The research was funded by grants from the US Dept. of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

Image taken by Keith Wood (of DeLuca lab) for Science Magazine. Permission to use on Wikipedia has been granted by Science Magazine (see