The VBNC state is a state of dormancy triggered by environmental harsh conditions, such as nutrient starvation, temperature, osmotic stress, oxygen availability, heavy metals, exposure to white light and decontaminating processes. At this state bacteria loses ability to grow on a solid media.
Viable but non-culturable bacteria refers to those that are in a state of very low metabolic activity and do not divide, but are alive and have the ability to become culturable once resuscitated. Flow Cytometry is a sensitive analytical technique that can be used in efficient way for study VBNC bacteria.
Mostly the un cultarable bacteria are studied by molecular methods such as flow cytometry, FISH employing gene-specific probes.
The VBNC is a physiological state where microorganisms posses all properties of life but cannot be grown on solid media. This could be as a result of certain conditions such as sub lethal injuries, and non recognition of substrate specificity etc. The best approach to study VNBC microbes is to integrate molecular biology tools more especially the culture independent methods such as metagenomics (sequence based and functional based)
- Badges
- Science topic