Table 1.

Characteristic differences between VBNC, persistent and culturable states

VBNC	Persistent	Culturable
Not culturable on normal culture medium	Still culturable	Can grow on normal culture medium
Lowered metabolism	Active metabolism	Highest metabolism
High antibiotic tolerance	Antibiotic tolerance	Antibiotic sensitive
Highly tolerant to stress conditions	Can tolerate stress moderately	Do not tolerate stress conditions
Takes a longer time to grow after stress conditions are removed	Quickly regain growth after stress conditions are removed	Lose growth under stress conditions well
Changes in cellular morphology	No changes in cellular morphology	No change in cellular morphology