Cyanide is a well known toxicant that arises in the environment from both biological and industrial sources. Bacteria have evolved novel coping mechanisms for cyanide and function as principal agents in the biosphere for cyanide recycling. Some bacteria exhibit the unusual ability of growing on cyanide as the sole nitrogen source. One such organism is Pseudomonas fluorescens NCIMB 11764 (Pf11764) which employs a novel oxidative mechanism for detoxifying and assimilating cyanide. A unique complex of enzymes referred to as cyanide oxygenase (CNO) is responsible for this ability converting cyanide to ammonia which is then assimilated. Because one component of the four member CNO complex was previously shown to act on cyanide independent of the other members, its characterization was sought as a means of gaining a better understanding of the overall catalytic mechanism of the complex. Preliminary studies suggested that the enzyme belonged to a subset of nitrilase enzymes known as cyanide dihydratases (CynD), however, a cynD-like gene in Pf11764 could not be detected by PCR. Instead, a separate nitrilase (Nit) linked to cyanide metabolism was detected. The corresponding nit gene was shown to be one of a conserved set of nit genes traced to a unique cluster in bacteria known as Nit1C. To determine whether the previously described CynD enzyme was instead Nit, efforts were undertaken to isolate the enzyme. This was pursued by cloning and expressing the recombinant enzyme and by attempting to isolate the native enzyme. This thesis is concerned with the latter activity and describes the purification of a Nit-like cyanide-degrading nitrilase (NitCC) from Pf11764 to ~95% homogeneity. Purification was greatly facilitated by the discovery that fumaronitrile, as opposed to cyanide, was the preferred substrate for the enzyme (20 versus 1 U/mg protein, respectively). While cyanide was less effective as a substrate, the specificity for cyanide far outweighed that (10,000 fold) of the recombinant enzyme (NitPG) implying that the native NitCC protein purified in this work is different from that of the cloned recombinant. Further evidence of this was provided by molecular studies indicating that the two proteins differ in mass (34.5 and 38 kDa, respectively) and amino acid sequence. In summary, two different Nit enzymes are encoded by Pf11764. While the two share greater than 50% amino acid sequence identity, the results suggest that the native NitCC enzyme purified in this work functions better as a cyanide-degrading nitrilase and is one of four enzyme components comprising CNO required for Pf11764 cyanide assimilation.

Utilization of cyanide as a nutritional nitrogen source in P. fluorescens NCIMB 11764 was shown to involve a novel metabolic mechanism involving nonenzymatic neutralization outside of cells prior to further enzymatic oxidation within. Several cyanide degrading enzymes were produced by NCIMB 11764 in response to growth or exposure to cyanide, but only one of these cyanide, oxygenase (CNO), was shown to be physiologically required for assimilation of cyanide as a growth substrate.