Metabolic engineering strategies to improve microbial acetate utilization for chemical production

Review article, 2026

Microbial cell factories have been established as an important platform for green biomanufacturing. However, current systems remain highly dependent on food-based carbon sources such as glucose, creating an industrial dilemma of “competing with humans for food and with agriculture for land,” thereby impeding large-scale industrial deployment. Acetate is considered a promising alternative carbon source that can circumvent these constraints and is broadly available from sources such as industrial off-gas conversion. In this review, the application potential of acetate as a carbon source is systematically summarized from four dimensions: acetate-assimilating microorganisms, metabolic engineering strategies for improving acetate utilization, metabolic engineering strategies for enhancing acetate tolerance, and metabolic engineering strategies for producing chemicals from acetate. In addition, the key challenges and future directions of acetate-based biomanufacturing are analyzed, providing a theoretical basis for industrial implementation.