Multienzyme System in Amorphous Metal-Organic Frameworks for Intracellular Lactate Detection

Lactate is an important downstream product of glycolysis in living cells, and its level is highly related with diseases. On the basis of amorphous metal-organic frameworks (aMOFs), a multienzyme system consisting of lactate oxidase (LOx) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was established for intracellular lactate detection. By coencapsulation in aMOFs with proximity, LOx and HRP were delivered into cells, serving as artificially constructed organelles, exhibiting high activity and selectivity for the intracellular detection of the important metabolite lactate, which improved the signal to noise ratio by similar to 650-fold. As demonstrated by both experimental and simulation results, the high efficiency was attributed to the short distance between the two types of enzymes coencapsulated in aMOFs. The concept of constructing multienzyme systems in this study shows promise for the detection of various intracellular metabolites.

Automated summary

This study establishes a multienzyme system consisting of lactate oxidase (LOx) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in living cells using amorphous metal-organic frameworks (aMOFs). This system, acting as artificially constructed organelles, shows high activity and selectivity for intracellular lactate detection, significantly improving the signal to noise ratio. The concept of constructing multienzyme systems holds promise for detecting various intracellular metabolites.