Solvent Tolerance in Bacteria: Fulfilling the Promise of the Biotech Era?

The challenge of sustainably producing highly valuable chemical compounds requires specialized microbial cell factories because many of these compounds can be toxic to microbial hosts. Therefore, solvent-tolerant bacteria are promising production hosts because of their intrinsic tolerance towards these compounds. Recent studies have helped to elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in solvent tolerance. Advances in synthetic biological tools will enable further development of streamlined solvent-tolerant production hosts and the transfer of solvent-tolerant traits to established industrial strains. In this review, we outline challenges and opportunities to implement solvent tolerance in bacteria as a desired trait for industrial biotechnology.