Concerns about animal enteropathogen contamination of fresh horticultural products have increased worldwide and are mainly due to the ability of bacteria to survive under stress conditions in the agricultural environment and during raw-vegetable processing. This review challenges the idea that the viable but nonculturable phenomenon that has been proven to occur in plant-associated environments contributes to human pathogen survival and might be

Escherichia coli O157:H7 continues to be an important human pathogen and has been increasingly linked to foodborne illness associated with fresh produce, particularly leafy greens. The aim of this work was to investigate the fate of E. coli O157:H7 on the phyllosphere of lettuce under low temperature and to evaluate the potential hazard of viable but non-culturable (VBNC) cells induced under such stressful conditions. First we studied the survival