An increase in temperature is a common physical stimulus to resuscitate most VBNC cells induced by low temperature, such as E. coli O157:H7, A. hydrophila, S. typhimurium, S. dysenteriae, Vibrio spp., E. faecalis, and S. aureus (Table 1). Resuscitation can also be mediated by different kinds of chemical stimuli, including sodium pyruvate (Lleo et al., 2001; Pinto et al., 2011; Morishige et al., 2013; Pasquaroli et al., 2013), amino acids (Pinto et al., 2011), and Tween 80 (Trinh et al., 2015). It is worth mentioning that researchers have different views on the resuscitation role of pyruvate. On the one hand, it is deliberated whether pyruvate cannot recover VBNC cells. Li et al. (2014) reported that the VBNC cells of S. typhimurium could not be recovered by supplementation with antioxidants such as pyruvate, catalase or oxyrase, but could be resuscitated by an autoinducer. On the other hand, some people insist that pyruvate has a significant effect on the resuscitation of VBNC strains. For example, Pinto et al. (2011) found that starving cells of E. coli could easily enter the VBNC state after the addition of pyruvate. Morishige et al. (2013) also discovered that the VBNC cells of S. enteritidis caused by H2O2 stress could regain culturability by the addition of sodium pyruvate but not pyruvate analogs (like phenyl pyruvate or bromoacetone), thus confirming that pyruvate was one of the key molecules in the process of resuscitation by triggering the synthesis of macromolecules such as DNA and protein.