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Nitrilase was first discovered in the early 1960s for its ability to catalyze the hydration of a nitrile to a carboxylic acid. [2] Although it was known at the time that nitrilase could operate with wide substrate specificity in producing the corresponding acid, later studies reported the first NHase (nitrile hydratase) activity exhibited by nitrilase.
The structure of a nitrile: the functional group is highlighted blue. In organic chemistry, a nitrile is any organic compound that has a −C≡N functional group.The name of the compound is composed of a base, which includes the carbon of the −C≡N, suffixed with "nitrile", so for example CH 3 CH 2 C≡N is called "propionitrile" (or propanenitrile). [1]
Nitriles can also be converted to aldehydes by reduction and hydrolysis. The Stephen aldehyde synthesis uses Tin(II) chloride and hydrochloric acid to yield an aldehyde via the hydrolysis of a resulting iminium salt. Aldehydes can also form using a hydrogen donor followed by in-situ hydrolysis of an imine.
Nitrile hydratase and amidase are two hydrating and hydrolytic enzymes responsible for the sequential metabolism of nitriles in bacteria that are capable of utilising nitriles as their sole source of nitrogen and carbon, and in concert act as an alternative to nitrilase activity, which performs nitrile hydrolysis without formation of an intermediate primary amide.
In enzymology, an aliphatic nitrilase also known as aliphatic nitrile aminohydrolase (EC 3.5.5.7) is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of nitriles to carboxylic acids: R-CN + 2 H 2 O ⇌ {\displaystyle \rightleftharpoons } R-COOH + NH 3
With nitrile electrophiles, nucleophilic addition take place by: [1] hydrolysis of a nitrile to form an amide or a carboxylic acid; organozinc nucleophiles in the Blaise reaction; alcohols in the Pinner reaction. the (same) nitrile α-carbon in the Thorpe reaction. The intramolecular version is called the Thorpe–Ziegler reaction.
In the second part of the reaction process, the nitrile is hydrolzed. First, the nitrile nitrogen of the aminonitrile is protonated, and the nitrile carbon is attacked by a water molecule. A 1,2-diamino-diol is then formed after proton exchange and a nucleophilic attack of water to the former nitrile carbon.
Nitrilium ions are believed to be intermediates in the hydrolysis of nitriles, [5] the Beckmann rearrangement, the Friedel-Crafts cyclization of amines to isoquinolines, [6] the Schmidt reaction with ketones, [7] and the Ugi, Ritter, Pinner and Passerini reactions.