ArticleInfection and immunity2015
Viable but Nonculturable and Persister Cells Coexist Stochastically and Are Induced by Human Serum.
Article in Infection and immunity, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 141 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biofilm-mediated antibiotic tolerance in bacterial pathogens: Integrated molecular networks and novel therapeutic avenues.Virulence · 2026Review
- From dividing to dormant: embracing the full activity spectrum for environmental microorganisms.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2026Review
- The Pharmacology of Bacterial Persistence: From Antibiotic Tolerance to Antimicrobial Resistance.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Stress-Driven Tolerance and Persistence ofBiology · 2026Review
- Beyond Resistance: Phenotypic Plasticity in Bacterial Responses to Antibiotics, Oxidative Stress and Antimicrobial Photodynamic Inactivation.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Repurposing antimicrobials with ultrasound-triggered nanoscale systems for targeted biofilm drug delivery.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2025Article
- From Dormancy to Eradication: Strategies for Controlling Bacterial Persisters in Food Settings.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Nutritional Stress Leads to Persistence and Persister-like Growth inPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Drug-induced differential culturability in diverse strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Viable but non-cultivable state in oral microbiota: a critical review of an underexplored microbial survival strategy.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Review
- Intracellular ATP concentration is a key regulator of bacterial cell fate.Journal of bacteriology · 2024Article
- Drug combinations targeting antibiotic resistance.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2024Review
- Single-cell phenotypic profiling and backtracing exposes and predicts clinically relevant subpopulations in isogenic Staphylococcus aureus communities.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Induction and comparative resuscitation of viable but nonculturable state on Vibrio parahaemolyticus serotypes O3:K6 and O1:K25.Archives of microbiology · 2024Article
- Bacterial persisters: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic development.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Public health aspects ofEFSA journal. European Food Safety Authority · 2024Article
- Practical Guidance for Clinical Microbiology Laboratories: Microbiologic diagnosis of implant-associated infections.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Overcoming microbial resuscitation using stable ultrafine gold nanosystems.Nanoscale advances · 2024Article
- Counter-on-chip for bacterial cell quantification, growth, and live-dead estimations.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Viable but nonculturable state in the zoonotic pathogenFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Dormancy holds a vital role in the ecological dynamics of microorganisms. Specifically, entry into dormancy allows cells to withstand times of stress while maintaining the potential for reentry into an active existence. The viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state and antibiotic persistence are two well-recognized conditions of dormancy demonstrated to contribute to bacterial stress tolerance and, as a consequence, yield populations that are tolerant to high-dose antibiotics. Aside from this commonality, more evidence is being presented that indicates the relatedness of these two states. Here, we demonstrate that VBNC cells are present during persister isolation experiments, further indicating that these cells coexist and are induced by the same conditions. Interestingly, we reveal that VBNC cells can exist stochastically in unstressed growing cultures, a finding that is characteristic of persisters. Furthermore, human serum induces the formation of both VBNC cells and persisters, a finding not previously described for either dormancy state. Lastly, we describe the role of toxin-antitoxin systems (TAS) in the induction of the VBNC state and report that these TAS, which are classically implicated in persister cell formation, are also induced during incubation in human serum. This study provides evidence for the recently proposed "dormancy continuum hypothesis" and substantiates the physical and molecular relatedness of VBNC and persister cells in a standardized model organism. Notably, these results provide new evidence for the clinical significance of VBNC and persister cells.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.