Description:
Acrylonitrile is microbially metabolized by Pseudomonas chlororaphis to acrylamide, a building block for various plastic polymers. Over 200,000 tons of acrylamide are produced annually in this way, 90% of which is used in the production of polyacrylamide polymers. These polymers are used for water treatment, storage, distribution and in polyacrylamide gels used for macromolecular analysis (Glazer, A.W. and Nikaido, H. Microbial Biotechnology. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1995). Pseudomonas chlororaphis k22 can degrade acrylonitrile directly to acrylate using aliphatic nitrilase ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1390687|Kobayashi et al., 1992]). Pseudomonas chlororaphis B23 uses nitrile hydratase and amidase to get to the same point ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3830164|Nagasawa et al., 1992]).