Keywords: 
• phenolic acid /
• microorganisms /
• degradation /
• mechanism

Abstract: Autotoxicity refers to the phenomenon of plant growth inhibition caused by the chemicals from plant residues, metabolites of pathogenic microorganisms, and root exudates. The most common autotoxic compounds are phenolic acids. The autotoxicity is one of the major factors restricting the development of modern agriculture. Therefore, bio-degradation of autotoxins through the action of microorganisms is a hot topic in recent years. However, in order to achieve the goal of practical application，it is necessary to clarify the mechanism and regularity of microbial transformation of phenolic acids. This paper summarized many previous studies and found that there have been lots of microorganisms that possessed the ability of degading the phenolic acids, in which case, biochemical reactions such as decarboxylation, oxidation and hydroxylation occurred during the process of degradation. As a result of degradation, phenolic acids were converted into small molecules containing benzene ring or completely mineralized. The degree of metabolic transformation of phenolic acids could be totally different caused by different microorganisms. On this basis, new microbial strains capable of degadation of phenolic acids should be further exploited, and the issues such as degradation selectivity and environmental risks should also be expounded in the future.