Nitrile-converting enzymes as a tool to improve biocatalysis in organic synthesis: recent insights and promises

Abstract

Nitrile-converting enzymes, including nitrilase and nitrile hydratase (NHase), have received increasing attention from researchers of industrial biocatalysis because of their critical role as a tool in organic synthesis of carboxylic acids and amides from nitriles. To date, these bioconversion approaches are considered as one of the most potential industrial processes using resting cells or purified enzymes as catalysts for production of food additives, pharmaceutical, and agrochemical precursors. This review focuses on the distribution and catalytic mechanism research of nitrile-converting enzymes in recent years. Molecular biology aspects to improve the biocatalytic performance of microbial nitrilase and NHase are demonstrated. The process developments of microbial nitrilase and NHase for organic synthesis are also discussed.

• Amide
• biocatalysis
• carboxylic acid
• molecular biology
• nitrilase
• nitrile hydratase
• organic synthesis

Acknowledgements

The authors would sincerely like to thank Prof. Zhi-Song Shen for his substantial supports for this project.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21406088 and 21206055), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20140133), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2012AA022204C), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. JUSRP11563). A funding information the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (No. JUSRP51516).