Abstract
Natural nanominerals (NNMs) are progressively deposited during earth’s formation. They have shown a broad range of applications from industrial catalysis, environmental treatment, and earth science to pharmaceutics due to their unique nanostructures and characteristics. Here, we first report that NNMs have intrinsic enzyme-like properties and show good biocompatibility. First, we characterized the morphology and structure of the six most representative NNMs including sepiolite, attapulgite, halloysite, montmorillonite, kaolinite, and diatomite by SEM, TEM, and XRD. Then, we quantitatively tested their peroxidase- (POD-), catalase- (CAT-), oxidase- (OXD-), and superoxide dismutase- (SOD-) like activities. The results indicate that different kinds of NNMs show varying degrees of POD-like, CAT-like, and SOD-like activities and minor OXD-like activity. Finally, we tested their cytotoxicity and found that the selected representative NNMs have no or less influence on cell viability, showing high biosafety. At present, NNMs have been widely used, mostly focusing on the physical and chemical properties, such as luminescence and conductivity. Our work promotes the understanding of NNMs, providing a new direction for the better application of NNMs.
Highlights
Natural enzymes are biocatalysts that facilitate a majority of biological reactions that occur in living systems [1]
Natural enzymes exhibit the advantages of high catalytic efficiency and specificity; they have shown a broad range of applications in biology and medicine
As a new type of promising artificial enzyme, nanozymes have gained a lot of applications from in vitro detection to in vivo monitoring [10,11,12] and therapy owing [13,14,15,16,17] to their obvious Journal of Nanomaterials advantages over natural enzymes and conventional artificial enzymes, such as low cost, high production, and tunable catalytic activities
Summary
Natural enzymes are biocatalysts that facilitate a majority of biological reactions that occur in living systems [1]. Natural enzymes exhibit the advantages of high catalytic efficiency and specificity; they have shown a broad range of applications in biology and medicine. Artificial enzymes are compounds synthesized by mimicking the structure and function of natural enzymes. They are prepared to overcome the drawbacks of a natural enzyme and have the advantages of high stability, low cost, longterm storage, etc. As a new type of promising artificial enzyme, nanozymes have gained a lot of applications from in vitro detection to in vivo monitoring [10,11,12] and therapy owing [13,14,15,16,17] to their obvious
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