MOFzyme: Intrinsic protease-like activity of Cu-MOF

The construction of efficient enzyme mimetics for the hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins is challenging due to the high stability of peptide bonds and the importance of proteases in biology and industry. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) consisting of infinite crystalline lattices with metal clusters and organic linkers may provide opportunities for protease mimic which has remained unknown. Herein, we report that Cu₂(C₉H₃O₆)₄/₃ MOF (which is well known as HKUST-1 and denoted as Cu-MOF here), possesses an intrinsic enzyme mimicking activity similar to that found in natural trypsin to bovine serum albumin (BSA) and casein. The Michaelis constant (Km) of Cu-MOF is about 26,000-fold smaller than that of free trypsin indicating a much higher affinity of BSA for Cu-MOF surface. Cu-MOF also exhibited significantly higher catalytic efficiency than homogeneous artificial metalloprotease Cu(II) complexes and could be reused for ten times without losing in its activity. Moreover, Cu-MOF was successfully used to simulate trypsinization in cell culture since it dissociated cells in culture even without EDTA.