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Te–Au nanowires with multiple enzyme-like activities for glucose detection

  • Materials for life sciences
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Abstract

Directed toward the limitations of natural enzymes in diabetes management, it is possible to design nano-enzymatic structures and modulate the activity as needed to obtain superior materials that are more suitable for the specific application environment. In this work, noble metal–semiconductor composite nanozymes [Te–Au nanowires (NWs)] were designed and their enzyme-like activities were systematically investigated for diabetes management. The results indicated that Te–Au NWs exhibited pH-switching multi-enzyme-like activities and adapted to a wider range of reaction conditions than natural enzymes. The kinetics of their enzyme-catalyzed reactions followed the Michaelis–Menten model, showing their substrate affinity similar to that of natural enzymes. Actually, the nanozymes showed reliable application stability, maintaining more than 80% of various enzyme activities under prolonged or extreme storage conditions. Furthermore, the nanozymes can be flexibly applied to various paths of glucose detection. For example, we constructed three different colorimetric detection methods to achieve the detection of glucose in saliva and blood. All three detection methods showed a wider linear range and lower limit of detection (LOD), among which the most optimal method was the combination of Te–Au NWs and glucose oxidase (GOx), with a linear range of 0.05–4 mM and a LOD of 2.11 μM. In summary, nanozymes with multiple enzyme-like activities have significant advantages and effectively address the limitations of natural enzymes in the application of diabetes management.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21874082), the Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program (Grant No. JCYJ20200109143014453) and the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (Grant No. RCBS20221008093327055).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen International Graduate School, Institute of Biopharmaceutical and Healthcare Engineering, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Rui Ma, Yijie Wang, Zhou Sha, Xiaotian Guan, Sihao Zhang, Chunnan Wang & Shuqing Sun

Authors
  1. Rui Ma
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  2. Yijie Wang
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  3. Zhou Sha
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  4. Xiaotian Guan
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  5. Sihao Zhang
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  6. Chunnan Wang
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  7. Shuqing Sun
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Contributions

RM contributed to the conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, and writing—original draft. YW was involved in the investigation and writing—review and editing. ZS assisted in the investigation and data curation. XG was involved in the formal analysis and writing—review and editing. SZ assisted in the investigation and formal analysis. CW contributed to the methodology, writing—review and editing, and supervision. SS was involved in the project administration, formal analysis, supervision, and funding acquisition.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chunnan Wang or Shuqing Sun.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate school.

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Handling Editor: Christopher Blanford.

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Ma, R., Wang, Y., Sha, Z. et al. Te–Au nanowires with multiple enzyme-like activities for glucose detection. J Mater Sci 59, 6929–6945 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-024-09621-5

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