Environmental biotechnology offers several promising techniques for the rehabilitation of polluted environments. The modern industrialized world presents novel challenges to the environmental sciences, requiring a constant development and deepening of knowledge to enable the characterization of novel pollutants and a better understanding of the bioremediation strategies as well as their limiting factors. The success of bioremediation depends heavily on the survival and activities of indigenous microbial communities and their interaction with introduced microorganisms. The majority of natural microbiomes remain uncultivated; therefore, further investigations focusing on their intrinsic functions in ecosystems are needed. In this review, we aimed to provide (a) a comprehensive overview of the presence of viable but nonculturable bacteria and yet-to-be-cultivated cells in nature and their diverse awakening strategies in response to, among other factors, signalling extracellular metabolites (autoinducers, resuscitation promoting factors, and siderophores); (b) an outline of the trends in isolating unculturable bacteria; and (c) the potential applications of these hidden players in rehabilitation processes.

环境生物技术为污染环境的修复提供了几种有前途的技术。现代工业化世界对环境科学提出了新的挑战，需要不断发展和加深知识，才能表征新型污染物并更好地理解生物修复策略及其限制因素。生物修复的成功在很大程度上取决于土著微生物群落的生存和活动及其与引入微生物的相互作用。大多数自然微生物群落尚未得到培养；因此，需要进一步研究其在生态系统中的内在功能。在这篇评论中 我们旨在提供（a）对自然界中存在但仍不可培养的细菌和尚待培养的细胞的存在的全面概述，以及它们对响应信号外细胞代谢物（自动诱导剂，促进复苏的其他因素）的不同唤醒策略因素和铁载体）；（b）概述分离不可培养细菌的趋势；（c）这些隐藏的参与者在康复过程中的潜在应用。