Nitrilases classification

All known fungal nitrilases exhibit high relative activities towards benzonitrile and its m- and p-substituted derivatives. Therefore, according to the nitrilase classification [46] they belong to aromatic nitrilases. However, almost all fungal nitrilases also hydrolyze aUphatic nitriles, albeit at lower relative rates. 

Organisms with Characterized Nitrilase Activity and Substrate Classification... 

Pace, H.C. and Brenner, C. 2001. The nitrilase superfamily Classification, structure and function. Genome Biology, 2 1-9. 

The well-known classification of nitrilases into different substrate specificity sub-types [2] was demonstrated to be in partial correlation with their aa sequence similarities. A prediction of substrate specificities in putative nitrilases could be made by grouping similar sequences. For instance, four probable arylacetonitri-lases were selected because of their high similarity (over 50%) to the biochemically characterized enzyme from Neurospora crassa, and their expected substrate specificities were confirmed [6]. Using this approach, it also seems possible to predict cyanide hydratases [5,6]. Aromatic nitrilases are not as easy to predict Members of... 

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