Generating monomeric 5-coordinated microperoxidase-11 using carboxylic acid functionalized silver nanoparticles: A surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering analysis

Microperoxidase-11 functionalized nanozyme with enhanced peroxidase-mimicking activities for visual detection of cysteine

Various nanomaterials with peroxidase activity (nanozyme) have been designed for bio catalysis and biosensing, however, most of them need further design and modification of probe molecules for the specific binding reaction with targets. This results in a decrease in catalysis activity and hinders them to be perfect alternatives to natural enzyme in biosensing. In this work, an enhanced nanozyme was synthesized by functionalizing natural microperoxidase-11 (MP-11) on a hybrid graphene oxide-gold (GO-Au) material. The designed nanozyme showed an enhanced catalysis activity and realized a robust and efficient colorimetric detection of cysteine based on specific binding reaction between active iron center from MP-11 and thiol in cysteine. The enhanced properties show promising applications of complex nanozyme and provides a great opportunity for developing efficient sensing systems.

Experimental and Computational Insight into the Mechanism of NO Binding to Ferric Microperoxidase. The Likely Role of Tautomerization to Account for the pH Dependence

According to the current paradigm, the metal-hydroxo bond in a six-coordinate porphyrin complex is believed to be significantly less reactive in ligand substitution than the analogous metal-aqua bond, due to a much higher strength of the former bond. Here, we report kinetic studies for nitric oxide (NO) binding to a heme-protein model, acetylated microperoxidase-11 (AcMP-11), that challenge this paradigm. In the studied pH range 7.4-12.6, ferric AcMP-11 exists in three acid-base forms, assigned in the literature as [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(H₂O)(HisH)] (1), [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(OH)(HisH)] (2), and [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(OH)(His^-)] (3). From the pH dependence of the second-order rate constant for NO binding (k_on), we determined individual rate constants characterizing forms 1-3, revealing only a ca. 10-fold decrease in the NO binding rate on going from 1 (k_on⁽¹⁾ = 3.8 × 10⁶ M^-1 s^-1) to 2 (k_on⁽²⁾ = 4.0 × 10⁵ M^-1 s^-1) and the inertness of 3. These findings lead to the abandonment of the dissociatively activated mechanism, in which the reaction rate can be directly correlated with the Fe-OH bond energy, as the mechanistic explanation for the process with regard to 2. The reactivity of 2 is accounted for through the existence of a tautomeric equilibrium between the major [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(OH)(HisH)] (2a) and minor [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(H₂O)(His^-)] (2b) species, of which the second one is assigned as the NO binding target due to its labile Fe-OH₂ bond. The proposed mechanism is further substantiated by quantum-chemical calculations, which confirmed both the significant labilization of the Fe-OH₂ bond in the [(AcMP-11)Fe^III(H₂O)(His^-)] tautomer and the feasibility of the tautomer formation, especially after introducing empirical corrections to the computed relative acidities of the H₂O and HisH ligands based on the experimental pK_a values. It is shown that the "effective lability" of the axial ligand (OH^-/H₂O) in 2 may be comparable to the lability of the H₂O ligand in 1.

Design and Characterization of a Novel Artificial Peroxidase

In this study, we reported on a novel mimetic peroxidase, deuterohemin–Ala–His–Glu, (Dh–A–H–E). The kinetic parameters of Dh–A–H–E suggested that it was a mimetic peroxidase and followed the ping–pong mechanism. Compared to horseradish peroxidase, Dh–A–H–E exhibited excellent stability when tested at different pH and temperatures, and using different organic solvents. Based on our above results, a new method using Dh–A–H–E has successfully been developed for the fast and quantitative detection of trace amounts of glucose.

Raman spectroscopy of pH-induced release of zidovudine from lactobionic acid-conjugated PEGylated gold colloids

Zidovudine (AZT) adsorbed on colloidal gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) undergoes pH-induced conformational changes according to spectral changes in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). In acidic pH values conditions, AZT assumes the C_(2')-endo conformer, which binds more weakly to AuNPs than under neutral and alkaline conditions. In this study, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed; these calculations also supported the conformation-dependent binding energies. A lactobionic acid-conjugated PEGylated (LA-PEG-SH; molecular weight: 3400) unit was attached to AuNPs to target the asialoglycoprotein receptors overexpressed in hepatocarcinoma cells of Huh7 and SNU-354. The loading efficiency values were measured to be ∼44-49% and ∼66-68% at pH values of 7 and 10, respectively. At an acidic pH of 4.5, they were estimated to be only ∼35-38%. pH-dependent spectral changes were observed for the asymmetric stretching modes of the azide (NNN) bands at 2183 cm^-1 (in acidic pH) and at 2129 cm^-1 (in basic pH). Cell viability analysis indicated that the LA-PEG-capped, AZT-coated AuNPs specifically inhibited the growth of the targeted hepatocarcinoma cells with better cancer cell killing efficiency than was observed with the LA-PEG-capped AuNPs without AZT.