The long-term survival of Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 19606(T) under nutrient-deprived conditions does not require the entry into the viable but non-culturable state.

Acinetobacter baumannii possesses a tremendous potential to thrive under hostile conditions. To learn more about its survival strategy and capacity to persist in the environment, we studied the effect of temperature, nutrient deprivation and dryness on the long-term survival of two A. baumannii strains (ATCC 19606(T) and a clinical isolate). Our results revealed that both strains show a great persistence under stress that appears to involve a bust-and-boom strategy. Bacterial survival was differentially affected by temperature and physical environment: Desiccation favored cell resistance to stress at 20 and 37 °C, while survival in aqueous environments was temperature dependent and led to changes in several cellular characteristics. In addition, we tested the ability of the A. baumannii ATCC 19606(T) strain to form biofilms by monitoring the expression of adhesion-/biofilm-related genes (ompA, bfmR and csuAB). The observed downregulation of these genes suggests that the potential difficulties to adhere to solid surfaces and form biofilms likely limit the capacity of starved cells to spread and colonize abiotic surfaces.