Atomically precise gold nanoclusters as ROS-scavenging clusterzymes to treat high-fat diet-induced obesity

Abstract

Obesity is widely considered a chronic inflammatory disease and is recognized as one of the major challenges to global public health, but there is no successful anti-inflammatory therapy for obesity so far. In this study, atomically precise Au22 nanoclusters are introduced as reactive oxygen species (ROS)-scavenging clusterzymes, with the aim of achieving anti-inflammation in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity. Au22 clusterzymes display high catalase (CAT)-like and superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activities, excellent antioxidant capacity. We demonstrate that Au22 clusterzymes treatment can effectively scavenge ROS, relieve the antioxidant system disorder, and restrain the inflammation in HFD-induced obese mice, with good biocompatibility. After 30 days of Au22 clusterzymes treatment, high therapeutic efficacy in anti-obesity is observed in HFD-induced obese mice, including decreased body weight by 13%, reduced serum levels of key inflammatory factors (IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α) in the obese mice by 23 – 48%, improved glucose tolerance and lipid metabolism, and increased browning of white adipose tissue (WAT). Overall, Au22 clusterzymes have good performance on ROS-scavenging and anti-inflammation in vivo, offering a promising approach to combat obesity and related metabolic diseases.