Abstract: Inositol,a kind of cyclic sugar alcohol which has optical activity and biological activity,has significant physiological functions and it is widely used in the fields including medicine,food and feed. Microbial production of inositol had broad application potentials.In this article,the functions of inositol,research development of fermentation and microbial enzymatic hydrolysis ways to produce inositol were described. Furthermore,prospect and tendency of microbial production of inositol were addressed.