Background:
Microbial adaptation is a fundamental process by which microorganisms dynamically adjust to changes in their environment. Microbial adaptation includes both short-term and long-term mechanisms that enable microorganisms to survive and thrive in changing environmental conditions. Microbial adaptation processes can result in evolutionary changes that provide sustainable advantages. These processes allow microbes to develop traits such as antibiotic resistance and enhanced biofilm formation, ensuring their survival and proliferation in diverse environments. Despite substantial progress, there remains a critical gap in the literature regarding a comprehensive synthesis of microbial adaptation mechanisms and their implications for enhancing food safety and ensuring the sustainable production of industrially valuable biochemicals.

Objectives:
This document seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in understanding resistance mechanisms to various environmental stresses for enhancement of food safety, including oxidative stress, hyperosmotic stress, thermal stress, acid stress, and organic solvent stress. In addition, the study examines the applications of stress-resistant mechanisms in producing diverse biomolecules and valuable chemicals. Finally, the manuscript offers a discuss prospects for identifying stress-resistant mechanisms through systems biology and further engineering these elements using synthetic biology to enhance productivity.

Methods:
The literature review sought to cover the most important aspects of stress-resistant mechanisms in the adaptation processes of microorganisms and their role in food safety and sustainable production of valuable biochemicals. This review was not limited to a specific time period, geographic or language scope, or publication type, although preference was given to peer-reviewed open access sources.

Results:
Researchers have found that adaptive responses of pathogens to factors such as changes in temperature, disinfectants, and storage conditions can pose significant challenges to traditional food safety practices. At the same time, microbial adaptation is an integral part of ecosystem functioning, profoundly influencing processes such as nutrient cycling, decomposition, and soil fertility. The soil microbial community plays a vital role in the safety of cultivated produce, as it acts as a key indicator of soil ecological status and the effectiveness of remediation of contaminated soils. Microorganisms serve as climate change signalling indicators, actively contributing to climate regulation. Higher temperatures, precipitation variations, and higher CO2 concentrations can increase microbial growth rates, potentially increasing the prevalence of pathogens in both plant and animal foods. Natural and synthetic microbial stressors are effective mechanisms for food quality and safety management. Adaptation to chemical stress provides microbial resistance to polluted environments and industrial processes, with implications for bioremediation, public health, and environmental sustainability.

Conclusion:
Microbial adaptation results from the interplay of environmental stressors, genetic variation, ecological interactions, and anthropogenic impacts that determine the resilience, diversity, and adaptive capacity of microbial communities in a variety of habitats and ecosystems. By manipulating these adaptive pathways through combined or sequential stressors (e.g., low heat and low pH), food technologists can disrupt microbial survival without compromising nutritional value. As the environmental stressor landscape continues to rapidly evolve, driven by anthropogenic activities, climate shifts, and emerging environmental disturbances, monitoring how microorganisms acclimate and evolve in response to these dynamic forces remains important.