There are thousands of areas in the U.S.A. and Europe contaminated with cyanide-containing wastes as a consequence of a large number of industrial activities such as gold mining, steel and aluminium manufacturing, electroplating and nitrile pesticides used in agriculture. Chemical treatments to remove cyanide are expensive and generate other toxic products. By contrast, cyanide biodegradation constitutes an appropriate alternative treatment. In the present review we provide an overview of how cells deal in the presence of the poison cyanide that irreversible binds to metals causing, among other things, iron-deprivation conditions outside the cell and metalloenzymes inhibition inside the cell. In this sense, several systems must be present in a cyanotrophic organism, including a siderophore-based acquisition mechanism, a cyanide-insensitive respiratory system and a cyanide degradation/assimilation pathway. The alkaliphilic autochthonous bacterium Pseudomonas pseudocaligenes CECT5344 presents all these requirements with the production of siderophores, a cyanide-insensitive bd-related cytochrome [Cio (cyanide-insensitive oxidase)] and a cyanide assimilation pathway that generates ammonium, which is further incorporated into organic nitrogen.
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February 2011
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Conference Article|
January 19 2011
Bacterial cyanide degradation is under review: Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes CECT5344, a case of an alkaliphilic cyanotroph
Victor M. Luque-Almagro;
Victor M. Luque-Almagro
*Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Severo Ochoa, 1a Planta, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
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Rafael Blasco;
Rafael Blasco
†Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y Genética, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain
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Manuel Martínez-Luque;
Manuel Martínez-Luque
*Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Severo Ochoa, 1a Planta, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
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Conrado Moreno-Vivián;
Conrado Moreno-Vivián
*Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Severo Ochoa, 1a Planta, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
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Francisco Castillo;
Francisco Castillo
*Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Severo Ochoa, 1a Planta, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
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M. Dolores Roldán
M. Dolores Roldán
1
*Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Severo Ochoa, 1a Planta, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
1To whom correspondence should be addressed (email: bb2rorum@uco.es).
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
September 13 2010
Online ISSN: 1470-8752
Print ISSN: 0300-5127
© The Authors Journal compilation © 2011 Biochemical Society
2011
Biochem Soc Trans (2011) 39 (1): 269–274.
Article history
Received:
September 13 2010
Citation
Victor M. Luque-Almagro, Rafael Blasco, Manuel Martínez-Luque, Conrado Moreno-Vivián, Francisco Castillo, M. Dolores Roldán; Bacterial cyanide degradation is under review: Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes CECT5344, a case of an alkaliphilic cyanotroph. Biochem Soc Trans 1 February 2011; 39 (1): 269–274. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/BST0390269
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