Table 1.

Reporter gene systems used in metals’ biosensors design.

Reporter gene(s)	Reporter protein	Origin	Substrate	Detection method	Comments	Reference
lux	Bacterial luciferase	Luminescent bacteria (V. fischeri, V. harvey)	Aldehydes (C9–C14)	Luminescence	O2 required	Billard and DuBow (1998); Gu et al. (2004)
lucGR	Insect luciferase	Click beetle (Pyrophorus plagiophtalamus)	luciferin	Luminescence	Exogenous substrate and O2 required	Bronstein et al. (1994)
lucFF		Firefly (Photinus pyralis)				Tauriainen et al. (1997); Billard and DuBow (1998)
gfp	Green fluorescent protein	Aequorea victoria		Fluorescence	Highly stable	Billard and DuBow (1998); Hakkila et al. (2002)
lacZ	β‐Galactosidase	E. coli	Galactopyranosides	Colorimetric Fluorescence Electrochemical	Exogenous substrate required	Biran et al. (2000); Gu et al. (2004)
bla	β‐Lactamase	E. coli	Lactamides	Colorimetric		Yoon et al. (1991); Moore et al. (1997)
crtA	Spheroidenone	Rhodovulum sulfidophilum	Demethylspheroidene	Colorimetric		Yagi (2007)