Aequorea Victoria: The Queen of the Oceanic Glow Up
- Dominika Romanik
- 1d
- 7 min read
Lake Orion, Michigan
The Glowing Beginning
The year was 1900. The summer on the coast of British Columbia was pleasant, warm,
and dry. Professor MacBride, a zoologist from McGill University of Montreal, was traversing the woodland coast with a junior author. The pair, upon closer inspection of the water, saw translucent, bioluminescent blobs floating in the crystal water. One of those few blobs was the Mesonema victoria, which you may know as… Aequorea victoria (or the Crystal Jelly). This bell-hemispherical-shaped creature was first announced to the world in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History on page 72. The report was written by Louis Murbach and Cresswell Shearer, who later took credit for discovering the species since they authored the taxonomic descriptions in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History while MacBride merely collected the specimens. However, it wouldn’t be until 1961 that the Crystal Jelly would reveal its secret, and Osamu Shimomura would make history.
Osamu Shimomura and the Crystal Jelly
Osamu Shimomura was born on August 27, 1928, in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto-Fu, Japan. At the age of 16, he worked at a new factory built in his hometown, which repaired fighter engines. His job was to smooth the face joining the crankcase to the cylinder. However, everything changed on August 9, 1945. As usual, he went to the top of a nearby hill with a couple of friends (instead of the bunker) and looked at the sky after a siren sounded at the Isahaya factory, signaling an air raid. After just a few minutes, the siren sounded the “all clear” signal, and they returned to work. However, when Shimomura sat back down on his work stool, a powerful flash of light came through the window. And then in another 40 seconds, another flash followed by a loud BANG and a sudden change of air pressure. The sky, once clear and crystal blue, was now filled with dark clouds. As Shimomura walked home, the rain poured down on him. Black rain. Six days later, Japan declared unconditional surrender. The Japanese people felt a sense of relief and fear, for while the war ended, their future was uncertain.
With the war over, Osamu Shimomura applied to three different colleges in 1946 and 1947. All of them rejected him. However, all hope wasn’t lost; the Nagasaki Pharmacy College (a part of Nagasaki Medical College) was preparing a temporary campus at a vacated military barracks near his home during this time. Although Osamu Shimomura was not planning to be a pharmacist, he didn’t have another choice, and he was accepted and admitted to the college in April 1948. During his time, Osamu Shimomura developed an interest in chemical experiments, despite the limitations posed by the low-quality equipment. He would later graduate in March 1951 at the top of his class. He was immediately offered a job as an assistant in the analytical chemistry laboratory for students by Professor Yasunaga. He took it, and during the spare time he had as an assistant, he continued chromatography experiments that he had started as a student. After working for Professor Yasunaga for four years, he was introduced to Professor Yoshimasa Hirata, an organic chemist. After just chatting for a few minutes, Professor Hirata asked him to come to his lab and told him he could start experimenting there anytime (despite having zero knowledge about molecular biology or organic chemistry). In April 1955, he enrolled in the Hirata laboratory as a research student. He would then help with researching the structure of Cypridina luciferin, and the first paper on it would be published in 1957. Osamu Shimomura would later be awarded a doctoral degree for his Cypridina work, even though he was not enrolled as a doctoral student.
In the spring of 1959, Professor Shimomura received a letter from Dr. Frank Johnson of Princeton University inviting him to work at his laboratory. After traveling by rail across the United States, he arrived at Princeton on September 17, 1960. On his first visit to Dr. Johnson’s office, he handed him a small vial containing freeze-dried light organs of the luminous jellyfish Aequorea Victoria… and the rest is history.
The Discovery of a Lifetime
So, what is so special about this Crystal Jelly?
After all, Osamu Shimomura did gain a Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2008 just because of what he discovered about the Aequorea victoria. It’s its bioluminescence. Or, rather, what causes it. You see, while Osamu Shimomura was studying the jellyfish, he discovered two brand new proteins in the creature: the Green Fluorescent Protein and Aequorin. According to ScienceDirect, Aequorea victoria may be the only biological system where Excited-state Proton Transfer (ESPT) was demonstrated. Thus, the GFP from Aequorea victoria may be one of the most unique proteins -- not just because it glows green, but because it does a rare and fascinating chemical trick where a molecule moves a positive hydrogen around only after being hit by light and changes its behavior. GFP absorbs light at two different wavelengths: the A-band takes in violet light (around 395 nm), while the B-band absorbs blue light (around 475 nm). Both of these excited states somehow produce green fluorescence, which… is odd. Why is this odd? Normally, a molecule that absorbs violet light (like the A-band does) would emit blue light. There was no reason for the green light to appear from that. This left many scientists puzzled… until they figured out that ESPT was happening. The ESPT process in the Crystal Jelly is quite complex. When violet light hits the neutral form of the chromophore (the light-sensitive core inside the
GFP), the chromophore’s pKa drops drastically, making it a strong acid. Because of this, the chromophore now wants to give away a proton, which is the tiny, positively charged hydrogen ion. That proton is then quickly transferred through a built-in hydrogen bond network inside the protein. As a result, the chromophore becomes negatively charged while still in its excited state, which is what allows
it to emit the green light. After a short while, everything resets and the system is back to square one.
How did the Crystal Jelly adapt to use bioluminescence?
The crystal jellyfish had several adaptations that helped them survive in their various habitats, such
as coastal waters, estuaries, and bays. They use bioluminescence to attract prey as well as communicate with other jellyfish. However, according to “Marine eukaryote bioluminescence: a review of species and their functional biology” by Laurent Duchatelet and Sam Dupont, the most prevalent function of bioluminescence is defense; this function allows many bioluminescent organisms to escape predators by startling and distracting the predators. They can also use glowing tentacles as decoys (and they’re able to regenerate them as well, according to American Oceans.) Additionally, in the Pacific Northwest waters (a habitat Crystal Jellies inhabit), the ambient light is often low or filtered. The jelly’s glow -- in addition to its transparency -- can blend its silhouette with the background in dim light, making it harder for predators to spot. With both their transparency and glowing light, they’re nearly impossible to find. What makes this especially interesting is that, unlike some other deep-sea creatures, the Crystal Jelly’s light is calcium-triggered and temporary, thus only lighting up in response to disturbance. The controlled flash is essentially an energy-efficient alarm system, only activating when it’s necessary.
Is the Crystal Jelly still used in labs?
YES! Outside of scientific studies and bioluminescence research, the Crystal Jelly has been used in many cancer labs. According to Fox News and BBC, a team from the Yorkshire Cancer Research Laboratory at York University has developed a procedure that would allow doctors to find hard-to-find early-stage cancers that are deep within the body. Scientists can attach GFP to other proteins or cells they want to track. When exposed to certain wavelengths of light, the tagged proteins light up, helping researchers visually follow how cancer cells spread, or how treatments move through the body. This glowing tag method is non-invasive, incredibly precise, and still widely used in genetics, neuroscience, developmental biology, and cancer research. With further development, it is possible that it would completely reinvent science and make the usage of X-rays obsolete.
Secrets still to be… unveiled?
According to “Aequorea’s secrets revealed: New fluorescent protein with unique properties for bioimaging and biosensing” by Gerard G. Kambert, Hadrien Depernet, Guilaumen Gtthard, and more, the scientists listed in the study used advanced genetic tools to study the Aequorea victoria to see if there were any new fluorescent proteins. In this study, they discovered nine brand-new fluorescent proteins that were very different from GFP. One of these proteins can change color depending on whether it’s hit with UV or blue light; furthermore, one of these new proteins has a unique chemical structure, which has never been seen before. These new proteins could become powerful new tools for science, especially for bioimaging and biosensing. For all we know, we could be seeing the solution to cancer unfold from simply gathering information on a jellyfish! It’s astonishing to think how a translucent blob drifting silently through the Pacific holds so many secrets that could revolutionize science and how we see life itself. From a simple adaptation to survive the cruel ocean to breakthroughs in modern medicine, the Crystal Jelly’s glow is more than just beautiful -- it might be a key to life’s many secrets. As technology further progresses and researchers continue to uncover the secrets behind this creature, one thing becomes more crystal clear: sometimes, nature’s most interesting adaptations may hold the brightest answers.
Sources:
WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Aequorea victoria (Murbach & Shearer, 1902)Canadian Register of Marine Species - Aequorea victoria (Murbach & Shearer, 1902)
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