Climate change intensifies drought and temperature extremes, threatening agricultural productivity and the resilience of soil ecosystems. The rhizosphere—the narrow zone of soil influenced by plant roots—harbours microbial communities that play a critical role in plant adaptation to stress. However, most modern microbes have evolved under stable Holocene conditions and may lack the traits needed to cope with ongoing climatic pressures. The TOLERATE project addresses this challenge by exploring the genetic memory preserved in Arctic permafrost, where ancient DNA traces microbial responses to past warming events. By recovering and reactivating these ancient stress-resilience genes through synthetic biology, TOLERATE seeks to design microbial solutions for sustainable agriculture and bio-based manufacturing. The project’s overall objective is to identify, reconstruct, and validate genes conferring drought, osmotic, and thermal tolerance, introducing them into modern bacterial chassis to create bioinoculants and production strains. This work aligns with the EU Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, and Circular Bioeconomy goals by providing tools to reduce irrigation, restore marginal soils, and replace fossil-derived industrial inputs with sustainable bio-based alternatives. The pathway to impact spans three dimensions: improved plant growth on degraded land, discovery of thermostable biomolecules for green manufacturing, and policy-relevant insights to update the regulatory framework for microbial biotechnology in climate adaptation.
