Despite the role of cyanide as critical precursor of some building blocks of life, the metabolic contextualization of cyanide assimilation in biological systems has remained surprisingly elusive so far. Addressing this topic by means of metabolic analysis at genome-scale using a high-quality metabolic reconstruction of Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes CECT 5344 allows the integration of cyanide assimilation into central metabolism. Remarkably, the cyanide assimilation is directly interconnected with the respiration, the Krebs cycle, and the nitrogen, phosphorous and Sulphur metabolism. These connections may add new clues in the context of the role of cyanide as (pre)biotic component of life.
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