Nanozymes improve treatment efficacy in tumors, indicating a potential for safer cancer therapies.
Nanozymes suffer from insufficient catalytic activity and sluggish electron transfer, while hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME)-induced radioresistance and limited reactive oxygen species accumulation hinder radiotherapy efficacy. Existing nanozyme radiosensitizers often require high-dose radiotherapy or combined drugs to achieve only a modest efficacy. Herein, we report a Pt-anchored MoOx (MPP) nanozyme synthesized via a surface defect-ligand reduction strategy with Pt nanoclusters loading up to 34.39 ± 0.92 wt %. It features a gradient electron-transfer interface constructed by strong Pt-O-Mo interactions, which enables atomic-level integration of Pt⁰/Pt²⁺ nanoclusters with MoOx and the simultaneous introduction of oxygen vacancies and an interfacial electron pool. Density functional theory calculations confirm the interface upshifts MoOx's d-band center, accelerates Mo → Pt electron transfer, and reduces the H₂O₂ dissociation barrier to 0.18 eV. Consequently, MPP achieves a catalase-like specific activity of 3884.53 U mg⁻¹ (2-fold natural catalase, 7528-fold MnO₂) and a turnover number (TON) of 25.7021 s⁻¹. Additionally, MPP exhibits a quantitative factor for electron transfer efficiency of 1.75, exceeding reported nanozymes. In the acidic TME, MPP orchestrates a catalase/superoxide dismutase/oxidase cascade to relieve hypoxia and generate •O₂⁻/¹O₂. Synergized with Pt's high-Z effect, MPP amplifies the efficacy of 6 Gy with low-dose radiotherapy, achieving 75.24% tumor inhibition rate without inducing systemic toxicity. This gradient electron-transfer interface strategy provides a promising paradigm for high-efficacy, low-toxicity tumor-specific therapy.
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Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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