Enhancing Catalytic Activity of a Nickel Single Atom Enzyme by Polynary Heteroatom Doping for Ferroptosis-Based Tumor Therapy

As a rising generation of nanozymes, single atom enzymes show significant promise for cancer therapy, due to their maximum atom utilization efficiency and well-defined electronic structures. However, it remains a tremendous challenge to precisely produce a heteroatom-doped single atom enzyme with an expected coordination environment. Herein, we develop an anion exchange strategy for precisely controlled production of an edge-rich sulfur (S)-and nitrogen (N)-decorated nickel single atom enzyme (S-N/Ni PSAE). In particular, sulfurized S-N/Ni PSAE exhibits stronger peroxidase-like and glutathione oxidase-like activities than the nitrogen-monodoped nickel single atom enzyme, which is attributed to the vacancies and defective sites of sulfurized nitrogen atoms. Moreover, both in vitro and in vivo results demonstrate that, compared with nitrogen-monodoped N/Ni PSAE, sulfurized S-N/Ni PSAE more effectively triggers ferroptosis of tumor cells via inactivating glutathione peroxidase 4 and inducing lipid peroxidation. This study highlights the enhanced catalytic efficacy of a polynary heteroatom-doped single atom enzyme for ferroptosis-based cancer therapy.

Automated summary

As a rising generation of nanozymes, single atom enzymes show promise for cancer therapy due to their maximum atom utilization efficiency and well-defined electronic structures. This study develops an anion exchange strategy to produce a heteroatom-doped single atom enzyme with precise control, specifically sulfur (S)-and nitrogen (N)-decorated nickel single atom enzyme (S-N/Ni PSAE). The sulfurized S-N/Ni PSAE exhibits enhanced peroxidase-like and glutathione oxidase-like activities, triggering ferroptosis of tumor cells more effectively in vitro and in vivo compared to nitrogen-monodoped N/Ni PSAE.