Overview of VBNC, a survival strategy for microorganisms

İzgördü, Özge Kaygusuz; Darcan, Cihan; Kariptaş, Ergin

doi:10.1007/s13205-022-03371-4

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 136 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although the concept of viability was primarily gauged by cultivability, i.e., the ability of a cell to replicate and form a colony on agar media ( USP, 2018 ; Fiore et al, 2020 ), there was agreement that the definition of viability should not be constrained to cultivability alone ( Wendel, 2022 ). For instance, bacterial cells may exist in a viable but not culturable (VBNC) state, where cells lose the ability to form colonies – yet maintain membrane integrity, enzyme activity, a pH gradient, and high levels of rRNA ( Lahtinen et al, 2006b , 2008 ; Fiore et al, 2020 ; Wendel, 2022 ) – as a survival strategy for microorganisms under various environmental stresses ( İzgörd et al, 2022 ). This distinguishes VBNC cells from dead cells, which exhibit irreversibly damaged cell membranes and no metabolic activity ( Li et al, 2014 ).…”

Section: Alternatives In Viability Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probiotic and postbiotic analytical methods: a perspective of available enumeration techniques

Boyte,

Benkowski,

Pane

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Probiotics are the largest non-herbal/traditional dietary supplements category worldwide. To be effective, a probiotic strain must be delivered viable at an adequate dose proven to deliver a health benefit. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the various technologies available for probiotic enumeration, including a general description of each technology, their advantages and limitations, and their potential for the future of the probiotics industry. The current “gold standard” for analytical quantification of probiotics in the probiotic industry is the Plate Count method (PC). PC measures the bacterial cell’s ability to proliferate into detectable colonies, thus PC relies on cultivability as a measure of viability. Although viability has widely been measured by cultivability, there has been agreement that the definition of viability is not limited to cultivability. For example, bacterial cells may exist in a state known as viable but not culturable (VBNC) where the cells lose cultivability but can maintain some of the characteristics of viable cells as well as probiotic properties. This led to questioning the association between viability and cultivability and the accuracy of PC in enumerating all the viable cells in probiotic products. PC has always been an estimate of the number of viable cells and not a true cell count. Additionally, newer probiotic categories such as Next Generation Probiotics (NGPs) are difficult to culture in routine laboratories as NGPs are often strict anaerobes with extreme sensitivity to atmospheric oxygen. Thus, accurate quantification using culture-based techniques will be complicated. Another emerging category of biotics is postbiotics, which are inanimate microorganisms, also often referred to as tyndallized or heat-killed bacteria. Obviously, culture dependent methods are not suitable for these products, and alternative methods are needed for their quantification. Different methodologies provide a more complete picture of a heterogeneous bacterial population versus PC focusing exclusively on the eventual multiplication of the cells. Alternative culture-independent techniques including real-time PCR, digital PCR and flow cytometry are discussed. These methods can measure viability beyond cultivability (i.e., by measuring cellular enzymatic activity, membrane integrity or membrane potential), and depending on how they are designed they can achieve strain-specific enumeration.

show abstract

Section: Alternatives In Viability Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probiotic and postbiotic analytical methods: a perspective of available enumeration techniques

Boyte,

Benkowski,

Pane

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Entering the viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state is a survival strategy for bacteria under adverse stresses ( İzgördü et al, 2022 ). Bacteria in the VBNC state is unable to grow on routine culture media, potentially leading to false negatives and the underestimation of contamination levels ( Salive et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bacteria in the VBNC state is unable to grow on routine culture media, potentially leading to false negatives and the underestimation of contamination levels ( Salive et al, 2020 ). VBNC bacteria can recover culturability when conditions are suitable, posing a potential threat to food safety ( İzgördü et al, 2022 ). Notably, a few studies have reported that PAW had the potential to induce Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli into the VBNC state, suggesting more examination on PAW sterilization ( Hu et al, 2024 ; Z. Xu et al, 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stress response of Salmonella Newport with various sequence types toward plasma-activated water: Viable but nonculturable state formation and outer membrane vesicle production

Sun,

Gao,

Liao

et al. 2024

Current Research in Food Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…However, bacterial persisters always originate from cells with an appropriate dormancy depth, as cells in extremely deep dormancy become viable but non-culturable cells (VBNC cells) ( 14 ). VBNC cells cannot grow on the routine laboratory media, but they retain specific features of viable cells and can be revived under appropriate conditions ( 15 – 17 ). Persisters and VBNC cells represent different developmental stages of a common dormancy continuum, where persisters originate from cells in shallow dormancy ( 14 , 16 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The metabolic slowdown caused by the deletion of pspA accelerates protein aggregation during stationary phase facilitating antibiotic persistence

Li,

Chen,

Zhang

et al. 2024

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Entering a dormant state is a prevailing mechanism used by bacterial cells to transiently evade antibiotic attacks and become persisters. The dynamic progression of bacterial dormancy depths driven by protein aggregation has been found to be critical for antibiotic persistence in recent years. However, our current understanding of the endogenous genes that affects dormancy depth remains limited. Here, we discovered a novel role of phage shock protein A ( pspA ) gene in modulating bacterial dormancy depth. Deletion of pspA of Escherichia coli resulted in increased bacterial dormancy depths and prolonged lag times for resuscitation during the stationary phase. ∆pspA exhibited a higher persister ratio compared to the wild type when challenged with various antibiotics. Microscopic images revealed that ∆pspA showed accelerated formation of protein aggresomes, which were collections of endogenous protein aggregates. Time-lapse imaging established the positive correlation between protein aggregation and antibiotic persistence of ∆pspA at the single-cell level. To investigate the molecular mechanism underlying accelerated protein aggregation, we performed transcriptome profiling and found the increased abundance of chaperons and a general metabolic slowdown in the absence of pspA . Consistent with the transcriptomic results, the ∆pspA strain showed a decreased cellular ATP level, which could be rescued by glucose supplementation. Then, we verified that replenishment of cellular ATP levels by adding glucose could inhibit protein aggregation and reduce persister formation in ∆pspA . This study highlights the novel role of pspA in maintaining proteostasis, regulating dormancy depth, and affecting antibiotic persistence during stationary phase.

show abstract

Overview of VBNC, a survival strategy for microorganisms

Cited by 20 publications

References 136 publications

Probiotic and postbiotic analytical methods: a perspective of available enumeration techniques

Probiotic and postbiotic analytical methods: a perspective of available enumeration techniques

Stress response of Salmonella Newport with various sequence types toward plasma-activated water: Viable but nonculturable state formation and outer membrane vesicle production

The metabolic slowdown caused by the deletion of pspA accelerates protein aggregation during stationary phase facilitating antibiotic persistence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About