Variant nitrile hydratases, microbia which express same, and use in amide synthesis
OwnerJaakko SIMELL, Jan MODREGGER +1inventors
InventorsJaakko SIMELL, Jan MODREGGER, Axel NIEBISCH
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a variant nitrile hydratase which is engineered to comprise greater activity and/or stability, nucleic acids encoding said nitrile hydratase, and microbia engineered to express said novel nitrile hydratase. Additionally the invention relates to the use of this nitrile hydratase and microbia which express said nitrile hydratase as a biocatalyst, particularly in methods for producing an amide compound from a nitrile compound, preferably for use in converting acrylonitrile to acrylamide.
Claims15
A variant nitrile hydratase comprising (i) an alpha subunit (nhhA) having an amino acid sequence which possesses at least 98, 99 or 100% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:
- 2 and (ii) a beta subunit (nhhB) comprising an amino acid sequence which possesses at least 98, 99 or 100% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:
- 1, with the proviso that the alpha subunit comprises one, two or three of the following mutations:
- L6T, A19V and F126Y and the beta subunit comprises one or both of the following mutations:
- E108D and A200E or comprises all three of the following mutations E108R, A200E and S212Y;
- wherein said variant nitrile hydratase possesses enhanced stability and/or activity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.