Enzymatic study of cyanide utilizing Pseudomonas species isolated from contaminated soil

Present study deals with understanding the probable metabolic pathway utilized to degrade cyanide present in the bacteria isolated from contaminated soil harboring the loads of industrial effluent mainly rich in cyanide compounds. This was done by performing the enzymatic assay of the enzymes used in the pathway. Present studies were conducted on cyanide utilizing Pseudomonas species isolated from previous work of isolation and characterization. It is supposed that the growing Pseudomonas species would be able to evolve a mechanism to utilize cyanide present in the soil as sole source of nitrogen and carbon. For the study, cell free extract of isolated bacterial species grown in the presence of potassium cyanide (KCN) was prepared and activities of enzymes having role in cyanide degradation pathway were observed. Literature studies had revealed that mainly four enzymes Cyanide dihydratase, Cyanide oxygenases (mono or dioxygenase), Nitrilase and Cyanase play an important role in different cyanide degrading pathways so activity of these four enzymes was detected on the basis of the measurement of released end products. Results showed the probability of presence of Cyanide dioxygenase enzyme which governs the oxidative pathway of cyanide degradation in bacterium. Studies were conducted to know about the favorable parameters like pH and temperature to get the maximum activity of the enzyme and studies revealed that the enzyme worked best when the growth conditions maintained as temperature 270C and pH 8.5.