Rhodococcus rhodocrous

Haloalkane dehalogenase from Rhodococcus rhodocrous Dehalogenation reaction Dravis et al., 2000 [47]... 

Another example in which a biocatalytic transformation has replaced a chemo-catalytic one, in a very simple reaction, is the Mitsubishi Rayon process for the production of acrylamide by hydration of acrylonitrile (Fig. 1.42). Whole cells of Rhodococcus rhodocrous, containing a nitrile hydratase, produced acrylamide in >99.9% purity at >99.9% conversion, and in high volumetric and space time yields [121]. The process (Fig. 1.42) currently accounts for more than 100000 tons annual production of acrylamide and replaced an existing process which employed a copper catalyst. A major advantage of the biocatalytic process is the high product purity, which is important for the main application of acrylamide as a specialty monomer. 

Amides can be made by the enzymatic hydrolysis of nitriles. Nitto Chemical Industry of Japan uses Rhodococcus rhodocrous to prepare acrylamide from acrylonitrile... 

The same whole cell catalyst can be used in the hydration of 3-cyanopyridine to nicotinamide (Scheme 12.1-17). This vitamin, broadly applied in animal feeding, is currently produced biocatalytically on an industrial scale (> 3000 t/a) by the Lonza AG. For this substrate Yamada and Kobayashi showed that the whole cell catalyst of Rhodococcus rhodocrous Jl, containing a nitrile hydratase induced with crotonamide, can even tolerate substrate concentrations up to 12 m 121 (see Fig. 12.1-3). 

Apart from L-phenylalanine, the homolog L-homophenylalanine (L-Hph), important as a component in ACE inhibitors, can be obtained from 2-keto-4-phenyl-butyrate with PheDH[54i. The substrate specificity of PheDH from Bacillus sphaericus has been investigated by Asano et al.[551. Table 15.3-5 compares the activities of two PheDH from Rhodococcus rhodocrous[8 and Bacillus sphaericus1551 for the transformation of aromatic and aliphatic keto acids. 

Keto acid B. stearo- thermophilus LeuDH B. cereus LeuDH B. sphaericus Rhodococcus LeuDH Rhodocrous PheDH ... 

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