Recently, single-atom catalysts (SACs) have been receiving increasing attention in various catalytic fields, and meanwhile, emerging nanocatalytic medicine provides a novel tumor chemotherapy modality without using toxic chemodrugs. The distinct properties of SACs, such as well-defined and precisely located metal centers, identical coordination environment, tailorable composition and structure, and versatile functionality, make them promising candidates for catalytic tumor therapy. Herein, the most recent advances in nanocatalytic tumor therapy by using various types of SACs, especially their remarkable achievements in several nanocatalytic tumor therapy-based modalities, such as chemodynamic therapy by tumor microenvironment-responsive catalytic reactions, photodynamic therapy by photocatalytic reactions, sonodynamic therapy by sonocatalytic reactions, and parallel catalytic therapy by parallel catalytic reactions, are reviewed by focusing on the catalytic nanoplatform construction and catalytic mechanism. A concise but concentrated summary and outlook are provided finally to outline the perspectives and the remaining challenges for the future design and engineering of SACs for tumor therapy.
Keywords: nanocatalytic tumor therapy; reactive oxygen species; single-atom catalysts.
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