Summary: The wild type strain Brevibacterium sp. R312 is able to hydrolyse water-soluble y- alkoxyaminonitriles, under mild conditions, at pH value close to neutrality and at moderate temperature. The results reported here show that this technique is valuable for synthetic purposes. a-Aminonitriles are important synthetic intermediates in the preparation of a- aminoacids (1, 2). They are available by a variety of methods (3) and their hydrolysis is ...