A supramolecular microgel glutathione peroxidase mimic with temperature responsive activity

Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) protects cells from oxidative damage by scavenging surplus reactive oxygen species (ROS). Commonly, an appropriate amount of ROS acts as a signal molecule in the metabolism. A smart artificial GPx exhibits adjustable catalytic activity, which can potentially reduce the amount of ROS to an appropriate degree and maintain its important physiological functions in metabolism. To construct an optimum and excellent smart artificial GPx, a novel supramolecular microgel artificial GPx (SM-Te) was prepared based on the supramolecular host-guest interaction employing the tellurium-containing guest molecule (ADA-Te-ADA) and the cyclodextrin-containing host block copolymer (poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-b-[polyacrylamides-co-poly(6-o-(triethylene glycol monoacrylate ether)-β-cyclodextrin)], PPAM-CD) as building blocks. Subsequently, based on these building blocks, SM-Te was constructed and the formation of its self-assembled structure was confirmed by dynamic light scattering, NMR, SEM, TEM, etc. Typically, benefitting from the temperature responsive properties of the PNIPAM scaffold, SM-Te also exhibited similar temperature responsive behaviour. Importantly, the GPx catalytic rates of SM-Te displayed a noticeable temperature responsive characteristic. Moreover, SM-Te exhibited the typical saturation kinetics behaviour of a real enzyme catalyst. It was proved that the changes of the hydrophobic microenvironment and the pore size in the supramolecular microgel network of SM-Te played significant roles in altering the temperature responsive catalytic behaviour. The successful construction of SM-Te not only overcomes the insurmountable disadvantages existing in previous covalent bond crosslinked microgel artificial GPx but also bodes well for the development of novel intelligent antioxidant drugs.