Because of the high catalytic activities and substrate specificity, natural enzymes have been widely used in industrial, medical, and biological fields, etc. Although promising, they often suffer from intrinsic shortcomings such as high cost, low operational stability, and difficulties of recycling. To overcome these shortcomings, researchers have been devoted to the exploration of artificial enzyme mimics for a long time. Since the discovery of ferromagnetic nanoparticles with intrinsic horseradish peroxidase-like activity in 2007, a large amount of studies on nanozymes have been constantly emerging in the next decade. Nanozymes are one kind of nanomaterials with enzymatic catalytic properties. Compared with natural enzymes, nanozymes have the advantages such as low cost, high stability and durability, which have been widely used in industrial, medical, and biological fields. A thorough understanding of the possible catalytic mechanisms will contribute to the development of novel and high-efficient nanozymes, and the rational regulations of the activities of nanozymes are of great significance. In this review, we systematically introduce the classification, catalytic mechanism, activity regulation as well as recent research progress of nanozymes in the field of biosensing, environmental protection, and disease treatments, etc. in the past years. We also propose the current challenges of nanozymes as well as their future research focus. We anticipate this review may be of significance for the field to understand the properties of nanozymes and the development of novel nanomaterials with enzyme mimicking activities.

Nanozymes: Classification, Catalytic Mechanisms, Activity Regulation, and Applications

The stereocontrolled construction of C−C bonds remains one of the foremost challenges in organic synthesis. At the heart of any chemical synthesis of a natural product or designed small molecule is the need to orchestrate a series of chemical reactions to prepare and functionalize a carbon framework. The advent of transition-metal catalysis has provided chemists with a broad range of new tools to forge C−C bonds and has resulted in a paradigm shift in synthetic strategy planning. The impact of these methods was recognized with the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, and Akira Suzuki for their seminal contributions to the development of Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling.

Enantioselective and Enantiospecific Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions of Organometallic Reagents To Construct C–C Bonds

Motor proteins are nature's solution for directing movement at the molecular level. The field of artificial molecular motors takes inspiration from these tiny but powerful machines. Although directional motion on the nanoscale performed by synthetic molecular machines is a relatively new development, significant advances have been made. In this review an overview is given of the principal designs of artificial molecular motors and their modes of operation. Although synthetic molecular motors have also found widespread application as (multistate) switches, we focus on the control of directional movement, both at the molecular scale and at larger magnitudes. We identify some key challenges remaining in the field.

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Artificial molecular motors

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with simultaneous plasmonic and biocatalytic properties provide a promising approach to developing versatile bioassays However, the combination of AuNPs’ intrinsic enzyme-mimicking properties with their surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activities has yet to be explored Here we designed a peroxidase-mimicking nanozyme by in situ growing AuNPs into a highly porous and thermally stable metal–organic framework called MIL-101 The obtained AuNPs@MIL-101 nanozymes acted as peroxidase mimics to oxidize Raman-inactive reporter leucomalachite green into the active malachite green (MG) with hydrogen peroxide and simultaneously as the SERS substrates to enhance the Raman signals of the as-produced MG We then assembled glucose oxidase (GOx) and lactate oxidase (LOx) onto AuNPs@MIL-101 to form AuNPs@MIL-101@GOx and AuNPs@MIL-101@LOx integrative nanozymes for in vitro detection of glucose and lactate via SERS Moreover, the integrative nanozymes were further explored for monitoring

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Active Gold Nanoparticles with Enzyme-Mimicking Activities for Measuring Glucose and Lactate in Living Tissues

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticlePDF/2017/CC/C7CC01254C

Stereospecific functionalizations and transformations of secondary and tertiary boronic esters

Readily available, α-substituted allyl/crotyl pinacol boronic esters often give low E/Z selectivity (with Z favored) in reactions with aldehydes. We found that addition of nBuLi to the pinacol boronic ester followed by trapping of the alkoxide with TFAA leads to an intermediate allyl borinic ester which undergoes allylboration with very high E selectivity. The substrate scope includes primary to tertiary alkyl α-substituents, crotyl substrates, and the previously unreported β-methallyl pinacol boronic esters. The latter give very high Z selectivity under standard conditions which is completely reversed to high E selectivity under the new conditions. Monitoring the reaction by 11B NMR confirmed that the reaction proceeds through a borinic ester intermediate.

Highly Diastereo‐ and Enantioselective Allylboration of Aldehydes Using α‐Substituted Allyl/Crotyl Pinacol Boronic Esters via in situ Generated Borinic Esters.

Key step in the total synthesis of the unusual morpholine-spiroketal acortatarin A (I) is a novel Maillard-type condensation reaction between a primary amine derived from D-mannitol and a dihydropyranone.

Synthesis of the Revised Structure of Acortatarin A.

The [5,6,6]-bis-spiroacetal moiety (II) of spirastrellolide B is prepared via a HgCl2-mediated double dithiane deprotection accompanied by a simultaneous bis-spiroacetalisation as a key step.

Synthesis of the Bis‐spiroacetal C25—C40 Moiety of the Antimitotic Agent Spirastrellolide B Using a Bis‐dithiane Deprotection/Spiroacetalisation Sequence.

It’s not known how life’s essential properties of replication, metabolism and compartmentalization were first integrated Two recent articles now shed light on how metabolic characteristics may be incorporated into replicating systems, harnessing an external energy source to increase their rate of replication and acquiring catalytic activity

Jack L.-Y. Chen

Papers

Highly Diastereo‐ and Enantioselective Allylboration of Aldehydes Using α‐Substituted Allyl/Crotyl Pinacol Boronic Esters via in situ Generated Borinic Esters.

Synthesis of the Revised Structure of Acortatarin A.

Synthesis of the Bis‐spiroacetal C25—C40 Moiety of the Antimitotic Agent Spirastrellolide B Using a Bis‐dithiane Deprotection/Spiroacetalisation Sequence.

Combining catalysis and replication.