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November 3, 2021 – Rumors began last spring, but were resurrected this week when a journalist tweeted that COVID-19 vaccines contained something called luciferase. The journalist, a correspondent for Newsmax, believes the name refers to Lucifer, another name for the devil. From there, others added more layers to the false story, prompting scientists to go on social media and explain what luciferase actually is and does.
COVID vaccines do not contain luciferase, and the chemical is not named after any of the versions of Lucifer that have dotted human history since pre-Christian times. Rather, the name is taken from the Latin meaning of “lucifer”, which is “bearer of light”. Luciferases are enzymes that act on high-energy molecules in animals such as fireflies. The energy released from this decay gives these animals their brilliance or bioluminescence.
This unexpected focus on bioluminescence offers an instructive moment about how researchers have borrowed these enzymes to use as laboratory tools, including in animal studies of some COVID vaccines.
One use is to track where and when cells use genes. Genes have regions that act as switches, enabling or disabling the use of a gene. Scientists who want to see when a cell turns on a gene can put the luciferase code next to that genetic switch. Each time the cell uses the target gene, it also uses the luciferase code. If the researchers add the molecule on which luciferase acts, the result is a cell that glows when it uses the gene – and luciferase.
Scientists can also use luciferases to label specific cell types and track them in a live animal, such as a mouse. In this way, for example, they can track the travel of a tumor cell in the body. Luciferases have been used to develop diagnostic tests for infectious diseases, including COVID, and to monitor how viruses enter cells.
In developing vaccines for COVID, researchers used luciferase in some studies in mice to track where the mRNA of the vaccine in animals goes. They used the enzyme only for these studies and it is not part of any of the mRNA vaccines given to humans or any of the other COVID vaccines. In other words, vaccination will not make you shine like a firefly.
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