Du Pont and NHases

One of the interesting things about the paper "Evidence for Participation of Remote Residues...etc" by Ondrechen and Ringe is that the source of the recombinant NHase is Du Pont. Du Pont have quite a history of applying this class of enzyme to chemical problems. A search of the chemical or patent literature for the names "Robert Di Cosimo" (sometimes DiCosimo on Espacenet), "Mark S Payne" and "Robert Fallon" pulls up a range of uses of NHases.

For instance, WO 2006049618 which protects the NHase and amidase from Comamonas testosteroni 5-MGMA-4D from both authors, or the 1997 paper in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology from Fallon, Stieglitz and Turner called "A Pseudomonas putida capable of stereoselective hydrolysis of nitriles" which describes work on the strain NRRL-18668.