Abstract: The pretreatment of raw materials is necessary in ethanol production from lignocellulose，in which some compounds of inhibiting microbial growth and subsequent fermentation are generated. The inhibitors are usually classified into three major groups：furan aldehydes，phenolics and weak acids. In recent years，significant progress has been earned in the research of inhibitory compounds. Firstly，we introduced the generation and the inhibition mechanisms of the inhibitors，focusing on the researches in recent years. Then，we discussed the countermeasures to inhibitors，including using new pretreatment methods to eliminate the generation of inhibitors，using effective detoxification of the pretreated substrates to reduce the concentration of inhibitors before fermentation，breeding of the inhibitor-tolerant strains and also fermentation control to reduce the toxic effects of the inhibitor. At present，a large number of studies focus on the development of inhibitor-tolerant strains，we summarized these methods of mutagenic breeding，adaption and metabolic engineering，as well as the research progresses and achievements of jointly using these methods. We pointed out that the metabolic engineering of microorganisms is the most promising approach for overcoming the effects of inhibitors on ethanol fermentation，and prospected the future research direction，aiming at providing references for the researchers in this field.

Key words: lignocellulose, inhibitor, inhibition mechanisms, adaption, metabolic engineering