Current Perspectives on Viable but Non-culturable State in Foodborne Pathogens

Abstract

The viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state, a unique state in which a number of bacteria respond to adverse circumstances, was first discovered in 1982. Unfortunately, it has been reported that many foodborne pathogens can be induced to enter the VBNC state by the limiting environmental conditions during food processing and preservation, such as extreme temperatures, drying, irradiation, pulsed electric field, and high pressure stress, as well as the addition of preservatives and disinfectants. After entering the VBNC state, foodborne pathogens will introduce a serious crisis to food safety and public health because they cannot be detected using conventional plate counting techniques. This review provides an overview of the various features of the VBNC state, including the biological characteristics, induction and resuscitation factors, formation and resuscitation mechanisms, detection methods, and relationship to food safety.

Flow cytometry as a potential method of measuring bacterial viability in probiotic products: A review

“…Hence, we arrive at another classification based on the term "vitality" or the degree to which a cell can perform various aspects of metabolic, physiological and genetic functionality and the extent of structural and morphological integrity (Kramer & Thielman, 2016). In this case, cell vitality is not exclusively related to reproducibility or cultivability and in certain aspects the cell can be described as being in a viable-but-non-culturable state (VBNC) as reviewed by Zhao, Zhong, Wei, Lin, and Ding (2017). A truly "dead" cell may therefore lack the minimal structural integrity and ability to carry out basic cell functionality such as control and activity of physiology, metabolism and genetic material and possess neither vitality or viability characteristics (Davis, 2014).…”

Unusual deprivation of compatible solutes in Acinetobacter baumannii

“…Regarding the sparse knowledge on the VBNC state in A. baumannii, further research is urgently needed. In general, many bacteria known to survive in a VBNC state are pathogens (Oliver, 2010;Li et al, 2014;Zhao et al, 2017). The prevalence of VBNC in pathogens poses a major threat to health care, and equally to food safety due to foodborne pathogens.…”

Development of a multiplex real‐time PCR for simultaneous detection of Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus in food samples

“…The enrichment broth has been used to meet the detection limit of culture based or molecular method (Dailey, Martin, & Smiley, ; Garrido et al, ; Verhaegen, De Reu, Heyndrickx, Van Damme, & De Zutter, ). B. cereus , L. monocytogenes , and S. aureus can be induced to enter the VBNC state during food processing techniques, such as starvation, low pH, low temperature, and preservation (Pasquaroli et al, ; Rowan, ; Zhao et al, ). Thus, enrichment broth was used to resuscitate VBNC pathogens, which helped recover the stressed cells to meet the detection threshold based on the molecular method.…”

“…Although these methods are effective and remain the golden standards, they are rather time‐consuming, labor‐intensive, and sometimes complicated (Ding et al, ; Forghani, Singh, Seo, & Oh, ; Li et al, ). Moreover, conventional culture based methods fail to detect viable but nonculturable (VBNC) cells which may introduce a serious crisis to food safety and public health (Zhao, Zhong, Wei, Lin, & Ding, ). In recent decades, molecular methods such as PCR have gained much attention for pathogen detection because they are simpler and faster compared to conventional culture methods (Mandal, Biswas, Choi, & Pal, ).…”