Approaches to the Measurement of Chemiluminescence or Bioluminescence in a Single Cell

Publisher Summary This chapter presents approaches to the measurement of chemiluminescence (CL) or bioluminescence in a single cell. Measuring light or CL emitted from a single cell is difficult to accomplish. In theory, such a measurement would be aided by two entities; the cell should emit a large quantity of light, inherently or aided by chemicals, and the detecting instrument should have high sensitivity for low-level light. The measurement of low-level light could be accomplished by two different methods. The first method involves the use of sensitive luminometers or liquid-scintillation counters that are operated with the photomultiplier tubes set in out-of-coincidence mode. Total emitted light is measured with these systems. If a chemical amplifier is added to the phagocytic cells, it is possible to measure CL from a very small number of cells. Naturally this would be dependent on the donor of the cells, conditions of assay, and instrument employed in measurement. Second, an instrument that measures an array of light emitted from cells in a two-dimensional grid could be utilized.