Bioinspired Spiky Peroxidase-Mimics for Localized Bacterial Capture and Synergistic Catalytic Sterilization

Besides the pandemic caused by the coronavirus outbreak, many other pathogenic microbes also pose a devastating threat to human health, for instance, pathogenic bacteria. Due to the lack of broad-spectrum antibiotics, it is urgent to develop nonantibiotic strategies to fight bacteria. Herein, inspired by the localized "capture and killing" action of bacteriophages, a virus-like peroxidase-mimic (V-POD-M) is synthesized for efficient bacterial capture (mesoporous spiky structures) and synergistic catalytic sterilization (metal-organic-framework-derived catalytic core). Experimental and theoretical calculations show that the active compound, MoO₃ , can serve as a peroxo-complex-intermediate to reduce the free energy for catalyzing H₂ O₂ , which mainly benefits the generation of •OH radicals. The unique virus-like spikes endow the V-POD-M with fast bacterial capture and killing abilities (nearly 100% at 16 µg mL^-1 ). Furthermore, the in vivo experiments show that V-POD-M possesses similar disinfection treatment and wound skin recovery efficiencies to vancomycin. It is suggested that this inexpensive, durable, and highly reactive oxygen species (ROS) catalytic active V-POD-M provides a promising broad-spectrum therapy for nonantibiotic disinfection.