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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Nov 18.
Published in final edited form as: Ecol Indic. 2013 May 1;28:125–141. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.01.020

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

The fundamentals of whole-cell bioreporter sensing. (a) A ‘lights-on’ bioreporter emits light when its promoter gene is activated upon exposure to a target of interest, and can function either specifically to identify a chemical or chemical class or nonspecifically to identify a toxic or stress-related cellular interaction. (b) A ‘lights-off’ bioreporter emits light continuously and signals the presence of a toxic chemical or stress-related interaction with its constitutive promoter via a reduction in its light emission intensity.