Regulatory mechanisms related to biofuel tolerance in producing microbes

Production of renewable biofuels through either native or engineered microbes has drawn significant attention in recent years, mostly due to the increasing concerns on the energy crisis and the environmental consequences of the overutilization of petroleum-based fuels. Although significant progress has been achieved thus far, further advances are still necessary in order to decrease the manufacturing cost so that the producing processes can be more competitive to petroleum fuels. Among various possible approaches, the increase in biofuel tolerance in microbes has been suggested as one aspect which is important for the success of biofuel production at industry-scale. In this article, we critically summarize recent advances in deciphering regulatory mechanisms for enhancing biofuel tolerance in various micro-organisms, focusing on functions and utilization of several well-studied regulatory mechanisms in microbes, such as two-component signal transduction systems, sigma factors, transcription factors, noncoding RNA and other regulators.