Smartphone-Based Portable Bioluminescence Imaging System Enabling Observation at Various Scales from Whole Mouse Body to Organelle

Abstract

Current smartphones equipped with high-sensitivity and high-resolution sensors in the camera can respond to the needs of low-light imaging, streaming acquisition, targets of various scales, etc. Therefore, a smartphone has great potential as an imaging device even in the scientific field and has already been introduced into biomolecular imaging using fluorescence tags. However, owing to the necessity of an excitation light source, fluorescence methods impair its mobility. Bioluminescence does not require illumination; therefore, imaging with a smartphone camera is compact and requires minimal devices, thus making it suitable for personal and portable imaging devices. Here, we report smartphone-based methods to observe biological targets in various scales using bioluminescence. In particular, we demonstrate, for the first time, that bioluminescence can be observed in an organelle in a single living cell using a smartphone camera by attaching a detachable objective lens. Through capturing color changes with the camera, changes in the amount of target molecules was detected using bioluminescent indicators. The combination of bioluminescence and a mobile phone makes possible a compact imaging system without an external light source and expands the potential of portable devices.

Portable light detectors for bioluminescence biosensing applications: A comprehensive review from the analytical chemist's perspective

“…The possibilities of the smartphone to image BL reactions occurring in biological targets was pushed forward by Hattori et al who employed a Samsung Galaxy S8+ to monitor Nanoluc chimeric proteins, called Nanolanterns (eNLs) in organelles and whole mouse body (Fig. 2D) [82][83]. An objective lens was also attached to the outer camera of the smartphone to image Ca 2+ dynamics within cellular organelles.…”

Development of a Smartphone-Integrated Reflective Scatterometer for Bacterial Identification

“…Min et al demonstrated a field-deployable smartphone-based lateral flow assay (LFA) analyzer that provided quantitative analysis and enhanced the sensitivity of commercial LFA rapid kits [ 12 ]. Furthermore, smartphones are also widely applied in other types of optical sensing methods such as bioluminescence [ 13 , 14 ], colorimetric [ 15 , 16 ], and spectroscopic detections [ 17 , 18 ]. They are also integrated into the electrochemical sensing platforms as amperometric, potentiometric, and impedimetric biosensors [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Improvements in Smartphone and Night Vision Imaging Technologies Enable Low Cost, On-Site Assays of Bioluminescent Cells

“…Although their performance was originally overshadowed by CCDs, due to competition in the consumer mobile electronics market and their prevalence in these devices, there has been heavy investment towards improving their performance that now makes them direct competitors with CCD sensors. CMOS sensors have broader representation in biological publications, having been used to measure chemiluminescence (Zangheri et al, 2015;Zangheri et al, 2021), and firefly (Kim et al, 2017;Michelini et al, 2019;Hattori et al, 2020) and bacterial luciferase (Ma et al, 2020) activity in animals, cultured human cells, and bacteria.…”