Nitrile degradation

Aldoximes are prepared from aldehydes and hydroxylamine by condensation reaction, and the dehydration reaction of aldoxime is one of the most important methods of nitrile synthesis in organic chemistry." We speculated that it would become one of the most important examples in Green Chemistry if the dehydration reaction could be realized by an enzymatic method, and started studies on a new enzyme, aldoxime dehydratase, and its use in enzymatic nitrile synthesis. Furthermore, we clarified the relationship between aldoxime dehydratase and nitrile-degrading enzymes in the genome of the microorganisms and the physiological role of the enzyme. 

We also found that the occurrence of aldoxime dehydratase is as wide as that for nitrile-degrading enzymes such as nitrile hydratase, amidase and/or nitri-lase. All of the nitrile degraders hitherto isolated contained aldoxime dehydratase activities. The author would like to propose that the pathway in which aldoximes are successively degraded via nitrile could be named as the aldoxime-nitrile pathway (Fig. 1). 

The dehydration reaction of aldoxime to form nitriles using the resting cells of Rhodococcus sp. YH3-3 was optimized. We found that the enzyme was induced by aldoxime and catalyzed the stoichiometric synthesis of nitriles from aldoximes at pH 7.0 and 30°C. Phenylacetonitrile once synthesized from phenylacetaldoxime was hydrolyzed to phenylacetic acid, since the strain has nitrile degradation enzymes such as nitrile hydratase and amidase. We have been successful in synthesizing phenylacetonitrile and other nitriles stoichiometrically by a selective inactivation of nitrile hydratase by heating the cells at 40°C for 1 h. Various nitriles were synthesized under optimized conditions from aldoximes in good yields. 

Banerjee, A., Sharma, R. and Banerjee, U.C. (2002) The nitrile-degrading enzymes current status and future prospects. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 60, 33 14. 

Zhou, Z., Hashimoto, Y. and Kobayashi, M. (2005) Nitrile degradation by Rhodococcus useful microbial metabolism for industrial productions. Actinomycetologica, 19, 18-26. 

Notably, nitrile-degrading enzymes (e.g. nitrilase that converts the CN group to carboxylic acid, and nitrile hydratase that produces an amide function) have been described, and they co-exist with aldoxime-degrading enzymes in bacteria (Reference 111 and references cited therein). Smdies in this area led to the proposal that the aldoxime-nitrile pathway, which is implemented in synthesis of drugs and fine chemicals, occurs as a natural enzymic pathway. It is of interest that the enzyme responsible for bacterial conversion of Af-hydroxy-L-phenylalanine to phenacetylaldoxime, an oxidative decarboxylation reaction, lacks heme or flavin groups which are found in plant or human enzymes that catalyze the same reaction. Its dependency on pyridoxal phosphate raised the possibility that similar systems may also be present in plants . 

D-Fucose (Rhodeose). Voto6ek obtained tetraacetyl-D-fucononitrile in 25% yield by treating D-fucose oxime with sodium acetate-acetic anhydride. The nitrile, degraded with ammonia and silver oxide, yielded 5-desoxy-D-lyxose diacetamide in 40% yield. The diacetamide compound was hydrolyzed with 5% hydrochloric acid and the 5-desoxy-D-lyxose was obtained in solution and characterized as the p-bromo-phenylosazone. Hydrolysis of the diacetamide compound with 6 N sulfuric acid was realized by Voto6ek and Valentin and the 5-desoxy-D-lyxose was isolated as a sirup. 

Nitrile hydratase was initially discovered by Yamada and co-workers of our laboratory [46]. The enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of nitriles into amides is clearly distinguishable from nitrilase in the mode of nitrile-degradation. Thus, the enzyme was termed nitrile hydratase (NHase) . This enzyme was purified and characterized from various micro-organisms. NHases are roughly classified into two groups according to the metal involved Fe-type and Co-type [45],... 

DISTRIBUTION AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ROLE OF NITRILE-DEGRADING ENZYME SYSTEMS... 

In this paper, enrichment and acclimation techniques are introduced with the isolation of nitrile degraders as typical examples. Furthermore, two recent examples of microbial screening by the use of synthetic substrates for opine dehydrogenase and alkaline D-peptidase are described. 

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