Soil as a Source for Potential Nitrilase Producer

Abstract

Enzymes have been identified as critical proteins since ages to carry out functions that spread across various industries. Enzymes are invaluable catalysts in comparison to their chemical counterparts as their reaction rates are much higher. Add to this enzymes produced from different microorganisms behave differently which adds dimension to their spectrum of activity. Nitrilase is one such enzyme which has a huge potential in biocatalysis of nitriles. Nitrilase(s) are a sub category of hydrolase(s) which carry out hydrolysis of carbon-nitrogen bonds other than the amide bonds. This ability nitrilase has been used in the past to generate chiral acids which otherwise are generated from a very harsh and tedious process. These chiral acids can be incorporated into various schemes of drug synthesis like for the production of chiral intermediates etc.
Various ecological habitats have been explored in the past to screen microorganisms that can be potential producers of certain categories of enzymes. Soil is one such component of nature where these microorganisms sustain for longer periods. Selecting a soil sampling site is very critical as it can significantly affect final outcome of the research objectives. The present work deals with screening of nitrilase producing microorganisms from four soil sampling sites. Although this research work has provided many microbial colonies but none of these showed a positive nitrilase activity.