Catalytically Active Nanomaterials: A Promising Candidate for Artificial Enzymes

TLDR: Graphene oxide could serve as a modulator to greatly improve the catalytic activity of lysozyme-stabilized gold nanoclusters at neutral pH, which will have great potential for applications in biological systems and the incorporation of modulator into artificial enzymes can offer a facile but highly effective way to improve their overall catalytic performance.

Abstract: ConspectusNatural enzymes, exquisite biocatalysts mediating every biological process in living organisms, are able to accelerate the rate of chemical reactions up to 1019 times for specific substrates and reactions. However, the practical application of enzymes is often hampered by their intrinsic drawbacks, such as low operational stability, sensitivity of catalytic activity to environmental conditions, and high costs in preparation and purification. Therefore, the discovery and development of artificial enzymes is highly desired. Recently, the merging of nanotechnology with biology has ignited extensive research efforts for designing functional nanomaterials that exhibit various properties intrinsic to enzymes. As a promising candidate for artificial enzymes, catalytically active nanomaterials (nanozymes) show several advantages over natural enzymes, such as controlled synthesis in low cost, tunability in catalytic activities, as well as high stability against stringent conditions.In this Account, we fo...