New paper on eukaryotic nitrile hydratases

One of the things that has refocussed me on NHases is the new paper in PLoS ONE on eukaryotic nitrile hydratases. It looks fascinating on a brief flick through.

Nitrile Hydratase Genes Are Present in Multiple Eukaryotic Supergroups by Alan O. Marron, Michael Akam and Giselle Walker in PLoS ONE here.

They have found more single subunit NHases in small eukaryotes, and discount their presence in anything bigger than a protist (like the ones in Ricinus communis) as prokaryotic contamination.

I'll be having a good perusal of this paper.

It's been a while...

I have been concentrating on my other research interests recently (anti-fouling surfaces, paint analysis and mass spectrometry as it happens) so I haven't updated this blog for a couple of months. I have had one student (Hello Luke!) working away on NHases, and he reckons that two of our NHases (including the one from Monosiga brevicollis) can monohydrate a substituted malonitrile.