Nanozymes: Activity origin, catalytic mechanism, and biological application

Nanozymes are nanomaterials with excellent enzyme-like characteristics. Compared with natural enzymes, nanozymes possess significant advantages, such as low cost, high stability, good durability, controllable activity, easy storage, and excellent reusability, thus they have been widely applied in industrial, medical, and biological fields. In the past decade, nanozymes have made impressive progress in their activity exploration, mechanism study, and advanced applications. In this review, we analyze the source of nanozyme catalytic activities from two aspects, including the structure comparison of natural enzymes and nanozymes and the nano effects of nanomaterials. We also systematically summarize the catalytic mechanism of nanozymes, and discuss the reason for their multiple enzyme-like activities. In addition, RONS regulation-based biological applications are comprehensively reviewed. Finally, we present the current challenges of nanozymes and their future research directions. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Nanozymes have significant advantages over natural enzymes and have been widely used in various fields due to their low cost, high stability, controllable activity, and reusability. This review comprehensively analyzes the source of nanozyme catalytic activities, discusses their catalytic mechanism and multiple enzyme-like activities, and reviews biological applications based on RONS regulation. The current challenges and future research directions of nanozymes are also presented.