Advantages of BioLuminescence Method for microorganism detection? - One adv. is that its detection rate is fast- BUT WHAT ELSE?? (Dec/22/2009 )

Could guess one advantage which is - its detection rate is fast.

But what else is there?


Please help me out- got exams in 2 weeks and i cant even answer this!! Thanks

are we talking about altered micro-organisms? or "wild" ones that have not been altered?

In the latter: you can detect organisms that you can not or may not detect with plating (not all organisms can be plated... viable but not culturable state by example)

Offcourse: this goes the other way around too: not all organisms are bioluminiscent.

But when detected: you know the bacteria has the lux operon and you can go ahead for a fast identification of the organism.