Patent ID: 7198927

Claim:
A process to produce glycolic acid from glycolonitrile comprising: a) contacting glycolonitrile in a suitable aqueous reaction mixture with an enzyme catalyst comprising a polypeptide having nitrilase activity, said polypeptide having an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 6 with an amino acid substitution selected from the group consisting of: 1) a substitution at amino acid residue 168 with lysine, methionine, threonine or valine; and 2) a substitution at amino acid residue 201 with glutamine, glycine, histidine, lysine, asparagine, serine, alanine, cysteine, or threonine; whereby glycolic acid is produced; and b) recovering the glycolic acid produced in (a) in the form of a salt or acid; wherein said enzyme catalyst provides at least a 1.5-fold increase in nitrilase activity relative to the nitrilase activity of the Acidovorax facilis 72W nitrilase when converting glycolonitrile to glycolic acid under identical reaction conditions.