Hydrolytic Nanozymes

Abstract

In 2004 we first reported catalytic nanoparticles, that are able to cleave phosphate diesters with very high efficiency (Angew. Chem. Int Ed, 2004, 43, 6165–6169) and dubbed them “nanozymes” for the similarity of their behavior with natural enzymes, both in terms of efficiency and mechanism of action. Since then the field has impressively expanded and a search on the web of science at the time of submitting this contribution returned almost 1,000 entries. This minireview highlights what has been done in the field focusing specifically on hydrolytic nanozymes, the focal point of the research in our group since its very beginning. Special emphasis is given to the advantage of bringing catalytic units in the confined space of a nanosystem in terms of inducing the cooperation between them, favoring the interaction with substrates, and altering the local environment. We will try to answer to questions like: why can a lipophilic substrate be transformed by these catalysts even in an aqueous environment? Why may the pH in the catalytic loci of the nanosystem be different from that of the bulk solution even in the presence of buffers? Why are most of these nanosystems better than monovalent ones?

Chirality at the Nanoparticle Surface: Functionalization and Applications

“…Scrimin et al developed catalytic NPs with behavior similar to that of natural enzymes and called them nanozymes [62]. For example, they exploited Au NPs as a platform for attaching thiols containing chiral Zn II -binding head groups [61].…”

Phosphate Triesters Cleavage by Gold Nanozymes

“…This means that DMNP, at the very low catalyst concentration we have used (2 × 10 −5 M), is mostly not bound to the nanoparticles. However by performing kinetics under Michealis-Menten conditions, behaving hence was nanozymes [12,13], (Figure 3) we were able to obtain relevant activity parameters for these catalysts. The analysis allowed us to determine the half-lives for the best performing catalysts (AuNP2-Zn(II) and AuNP4-Cu(II)) that were 27 and 38 min, respectively for the substrate fully bound to the nanoparticles, at pH = 8 and 25 °C.…”

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of a Catalytic Multivalent Peptide–Nanoparticle Complex

“…Nanozymes [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], the artificially engineered functional nanomaterials, exhibit natural enzyme like intriguing catalytic activity and thus have huge applications in disease diagnosis [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 9 ], nanomedicine [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 10 ], environmental treatment [ 4 ], antimicrobial agent [ 11 ]. Although the existing natural enzymes demonstrate a potential role in medicine and industry, their functions are often sensitive to high temperature and extreme pH; moreover, high-cost preparation, difficulty in recycling, substrate sensitivity, low operational stability are some obstacles [ 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ] that hinder their performance.…”