Laboratory of Chemical Biology and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry , Chinese Academy of Sciences , Changchun , Jilin 130022 , P.R. China.
Graduate School , University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100039 , P.R. China.
Acc Chem Res. 2018 Mar 20;51(3):789-799. doi: 10.1021/acs.accounts.8b00011. Epub 2018 Feb 28.
Bacterial infection continues to be a growing global health problem with the most widely accepted treatment paradigms restricted to antibiotics. However, antibiotics overuse and misuse have triggered increased multidrug resistance, frustrating the therapeutic outcomes and leading to higher mortalities. Even worse, the tendency of bacteria to form biofilms on living and nonliving surfaces further increases the difficulty in confronting bacteria because the extracellular matrix can act as a robust barrier to prevent the penetration of antibiotics and resist environmental stress. As a result, the inability to completely eliminate bacteria and biofilms often leads to persistent infection, implant failure, and device damage. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to develop alternative antimicrobial agents while avoiding the generation of bacterial resistance. Taking lessons from natural enzymes for destroying cellular structural integrity or interfering with metabolisms such as proliferation, quorum sensing, and programmed death, the construction of artificial enzymes to mimic the enzyme functions will provide unprecedented opportunities for combating bacteria. Moreover, compared to natural enzymes, artificial enzymes possess much higher stability against stringent conditions, easier tunable catalytic activity, and large-scale production for practical use. In this Account, we will focus on our recent progress in the design and synthesis of artificial enzymes as a new generation of "antibiotics", which have been demonstrated as promising applications in planktonic bacteria inactivation, wound/lung disinfection, as well as biofilm inhibition and dispersion. First, we will introduce direct utilization of the intrinsic catalytic activities of artificial enzymes without dangerous chemical auxiliaries for killing bacteria under mild conditions. Second, to avoid the toxicity caused by overdose of HO in conventional disinfections, we leveraged artificial enzymes with peroxidase-mimic activities to catalyze the generation of hydroxyl radicals at low HO levels while achieving efficient antibacterial outcomes. Importantly, the feasibility of these artificial enzymes was further demonstrated in vivo by mitigating mice wound and lung disinfection. Third, by combining artificial enzymes with stimuli-responsive materials, smart on-demand therapeutic modalities were constructed for thwarting bacteria in a controllable manner. For instance, a photoswitchable "Band-Aid"-like hydrogel doped with artificial enzymes was developed for efficiently killing bacteria without compromising mammal cell proliferation, which was promising for accelerating wound healing. Lastly, regarding the key roles that extracellular DNAs (eDNAs) play in maintaining biofilm integrity, we further designed a multinuclear metal complex-based DNase-mimetic artificial enzyme toward cleaving the eDNA for inhibiting biofilm formation and dispersing the established biofilms. We expect that our rational designs would boost the development of artificial enzymes with different formulations as novel antibacterial agents for clinical and industrial applications.
细菌感染仍然是一个全球性的健康问题,最广泛接受的治疗模式仅限于抗生素。然而,抗生素的过度使用和滥用导致了耐药性的增加,这不仅影响了治疗效果,还导致了更高的死亡率。更糟糕的是,细菌在生物和非生物表面形成生物膜的趋势进一步增加了对抗细菌的难度,因为细胞外基质可以作为一个强大的屏障,防止抗生素的渗透和抵抗环境压力。因此,无法完全消除细菌和生物膜往往会导致持续感染、植入物失败和设备损坏。因此,开发替代抗菌剂而避免细菌产生耐药性至关重要。从天然酶破坏细胞结构完整性或干扰代谢的角度,例如增殖、群体感应和程序性死亡,构建模仿酶功能的人工酶为对抗细菌提供了前所未有的机会。此外,与天然酶相比,人工酶具有更高的稳定性,更易于调节催化活性,并且可以大规模生产,适用于实际用途。在本账目中,我们将重点介绍我们在设计和合成人工酶作为新一代“抗生素”方面的最新进展,这些酶在浮游细菌失活、伤口/肺部消毒以及生物膜抑制和分散方面显示出了有前途的应用。首先,我们将介绍在温和条件下利用人工酶的固有催化活性而无需使用危险的化学助剂直接杀死细菌。其次,为了避免传统消毒中由于过量 HO 引起的毒性,我们利用具有过氧化物酶模拟活性的人工酶在低 HO 水平下催化生成羟基自由基,同时实现高效的抗菌效果。重要的是,这些人工酶的可行性通过减轻小鼠伤口和肺部消毒进一步在体内得到证明。第三,通过将人工酶与刺激响应材料结合,构建了智能按需治疗方式,以可控的方式对抗细菌。例如,开发了一种掺杂人工酶的光开关“创可贴”样水凝胶,可在不影响哺乳动物细胞增殖的情况下有效杀死细菌,有望加速伤口愈合。最后,鉴于细胞外 DNA (eDNA) 在维持生物膜完整性方面的关键作用,我们进一步设计了一种基于多核金属配合物的 DNA 酶模拟人工酶,用于切割 eDNA 以抑制生物膜形成和分散已建立的生物膜。我们期望我们的合理设计将促进具有不同配方的人工酶的发展,作为用于临床和工业应用的新型抗菌剂。
Acc Chem Res. 2018-2-28
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2016-8-3
Int J Artif Organs. 2009-9
Int J Artif Organs. 2009-9
Mater Today Bio. 2025-8-11
Mater Today Bio. 2025-7-18
Small Sci. 2025-3-9
J Nanobiotechnology. 2025-6-19
Research (Wash D C). 2025-2-11
Microorganisms. 2024-12-30
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025-1-15