. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jan 10.

Published in final edited form as: Biometals. 2014 Jan 16;27(1):195–205. doi: 10.1007/s10534-014-9704-0

Table 1.

Advantages and disadvantages of Tetrahymena WCBs based on metallothionein promoters with different reporter genes.

Biosensor	Advantages	Disadvantages
GFPMTT5 / GFPMTT1	No exogenous substrates required.	Minimal exposure time : 2h
	Cells viable up to 15 µM Cd²⁺	Minimum detectable Cd²⁺ concentration: 445 nM

MTT1Luc / MTT5Luc (Amaro et al. 2011)	Minimal exposure time : 1h	Exogenous substrate required (D-luciferin)
	Minimum detectable Cd²⁺ concentration: 5–25 nM	Bioluminiscence until 5 µM Cd²⁺