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Updated: Jul 11, 2025
Nanosensors to Detect Protease Activity In Vivo for Noninvasive Diagnostics
Published on: July 16, 2018
Bioinspired porous three-coordinated single-atom Fe nanozyme with oxidase-like activity for tumor visual
Da Chen1, Zhaoming Xia2, Zhixiong Guo1
1Key Laboratory of Special Functional and Smart Polymer Materials of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 710072, Xi'an, China.
Abstract:
Inspired by structures of natural metalloenzymes, a biomimetic synthetic strategy is developed for scalable synthesis of porous Fe-N3 single atom nanozymes (pFeSAN) using hemoglobin as Fe-source and template. pFeSAN delivers 3.3- and 8791-fold higher oxidase-like activity than Fe-N4 and Fe3O4 nanozymes. The high catalytic performance is attributed to (1) the suppressed aggregation of atomically dispersed Fe; (2) facilitated mass transfer and maximized exposure of active sites for the created mesopores by thermal removal of hemoglobin (2 ~ 3 nm); and (3) unique electronic configuration of Fe-N3 for the oxygen-to-water oxidation pathway (analogy with natural cytochrome c oxidase). The pFeSAN is successfully demonstrated for the rapid colorimetric detection of glutathione with a low limit of detection (2.4 nM) and wide range (50 nM-1 mM), and further developed as a real-time, facile, rapid (~6 min) and precise visualization analysis methodology of tumors via glutathione level, showing its potentials for diagnostic and clinic applications.
