Fig 1. The age of the strain can affect VBNC formation and resuscitation.

A) The number of culturable cells of V. parahaemolyticus RIMD 2210633 in the microcosms over time using either fresh cultures that were ≤5 days out of the freezer or older cultures that had been on agar plates for ≥14 days. When older cultures were used to set up microcosms it took ~20 days for cells to reach unculturable while microcosms prepared with cultures that were less than 5 days old from freezer stocks took longer to become unculturable in the microcosm. The detection limit of CFU was 0.2 cells /ml. B) Resuscitation of cells was tested when all the cells in the population had turned unculturable. When older cultures were used to set up a microcosm a resuscitation window of 7 days was observed while a resuscitation window of 2 weeks could be observed in microcosms set up with fresher cultures.