Ultrasmall copper nanoclusters with multi-enzyme activities.

Journal: RSC advances
Published Date: Apr 19, 2021

Abstract

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a key messenger of signal transduction mediate physiological activities, however, oxidative stress produced by excessive ROS can cause the destruction of cell homeostasis, which will result in a series of diseases. Therefore, effective control of ROS level is critical to the homeostasis of the cell. Here, we reported that glutathione (GSH)-stabilized copper nanoclusters (CuNCs) with about 9 Cu atoms can functionally mimic three major antioxidant enzymes, namely catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). The rate of HO decomposition was calculated to be ∼0.23 mg L s when the concentration of CuNCs was 100 μg mL. The SOD-like activity by catalyzing the disproportionation of superoxide to HO and O reached 25.6 U mg when the effective inhibition rate was ∼55.4%. Intracellular ROS scavenging studies further identified that CuNCs can obviously protect cells from oxidative stress and the cell viability recovered to above 90%. Hence, we expect that ultrasmall CuNCs will provide good therapeutic potential in the future treatment of ROS-related diseases.

Authors

  • Yangbin Peng
    State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan 430070 PR China chang@whut.edu.cn suntl@whut.edu.cn.
  • Ying Ren
    Department of Radiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University Shenyang 110004 P. R. China.
  • Hao Zhu
    State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan 430070 PR China chang@whut.edu.cn suntl@whut.edu.cn.
  • Yu An
    School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Science, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan 430070 PR China.
  • Baisong Chang
    State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan 430070 PR China chang@whut.edu.cn suntl@whut.edu.cn.
  • Taolei Sun
    State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan 430070 PR China chang@whut.edu.cn suntl@whut.edu.cn.

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