Near-infrared light-heatable platinum nanozyme for synergistic bacterial inhibition

The development of non-antibiotic strategies for bacterial disinfection is of great clinical importance. Among recently developed different antimicrobial strategies, nanomaterial-mediated approaches, especially the photothermal way and reactive oxygen species (ROS)-generating method, show many significant advantages. Although promising, the clinical application of nanomaterials is still limited, owing to the potential biosafety issues. Further improvement of the antimicrobial activity to reduce the usage, and thus reduce the potential risk, is an important way to increase the clinical applicability of antibacterial nanomaterials. In this paper, an antimicrobial nanostructure with both an excellent photothermal effect and peroxidase-like activity was constructed to achieve efficient synergistic antimicrobial activity. The obtained nano-antimicrobial agent (ZIF-8@PDA@Pt) can not only efficiently catalyze the production of ROS from H₂O₂ to cause damage to bacteria but also convert the photon energy of near-infrared light into thermal energy to kill bacteria, and the two synergistic effects induced in a highly efficient antimicrobial activity. This study not only offers a new nanomaterial with efficient antibacterial activity but also proposes a new idea for constructing synergistic antibacterial properties.