Biohybrid materials comprising an artificial peroxidase and differently shaped gold nanoparticles

The immobilization of biocatalysts on inorganic supports allows the development of bio-nanohybrid materials with defined functional properties. Gold nanomaterials (AuNMs) are the main players in this field, due to their fascinating shape-dependent properties that account for their versatility. Even though incredible progress has been made in the preparation of AuNMs, few studies have been carried out to analyze the impact of particle morphology on the behavior of immobilized biocatalysts. Herein, the artificial peroxidase Fe(iii)-Mimochrome VI*a (FeMC6*a) was conjugated to two different anisotropic gold nanomaterials, nanorods (AuNRs) and triangular nanoprisms (AuNTs), to investigate how the properties of the nanosupport can affect the functional behavior of FeMC6*a. The conjugation of FeMC6*a to AuNMs was performed by a click-chemistry approach, using FeMC6*a modified with pegylated aza-dibenzocyclooctyne (FeMC6*a-PEG₄@DBCO), which was allowed to react with azide-functionalized AuNRs and AuNTs, synthesized from citrate-capped AuNMs. To this end, a literature protocol for depleting CTAB from AuNRs was herein reported for the first time to prepare citrate-AuNTs. The overall results suggest that the nanomaterial shape influences the nanoconjugate functional properties. Besides giving new insights into the effect of the surfaces on the artificial peroxidase properties, these results open up the way for creating novel nanostructures with potential applications in the field of sensing devices.