Viable but nonculturable (VBNC) Vibrio cholerae non-O1/non-O139, V. parahaemolyticus, enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, enterotoxigenic E. coli, enteropathogenic E. coli, Shigella flexneri, and Salmonella enterica were converted to the culturable state by co-culture with selected eukaryotic cells, e.g., HT-29, Caco-2, T84, HeLa, Intestine 407, and CHO cells.Key words conversion to culturability, enteric bacteria, viable but nonculturable.Viable but nonculturable (VBNC) bacteria are defined as bacteria that are living but unable to grow or divide when inoculated into routinely used bacteriological culture media. In 1982, Xu et al. first reported on VBNC bacteria, including Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae (1). Subsequently, many investigators have reported on VBNC bacteria, with more than 60 species of bacteria shown to demonstrate the phenomenon, including many human pathogens (2, 3).Conversion of VBNC cells to the culturable state was first demonstrated by Colwell et al., using rabbit ileal loop inoculation (4), followed by human volunteer studies (5). Several in vitro methods have been used to convert VBNC bacteria to the culturable state (6-10). Recently, we reported VBNC V. cholerae O1 and O139 cells could be converted to the culturable state by co-culture with eukaryotic cells, namely HT-29, Caco-2, T84, HeLa, Intestine 407, and CHO cells (11). We report here the conversion of several enteric bacteria in the VBNC state, including V. cholerae non-O1/non-O139, V. parahaemolyticus, enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), enteroCorrespondence