Nanozymes-Mediated Cascade Reaction System for Tumor-Specific Diagnosis and Targeted Therapy

Abstract

Cascade reactions are described as efficient and versatile tools, and organized catalytic cascades can significantly improve the efficiency of chemical interworking between nanozymes. They have attracted great interest in many fields such as chromogenic detection, biosensing, tumor diagnosis, and therapy. However, how to selectively kill tumor cells by enzymatic reactions without harming normal cells, as well as exploring two or more enzyme-engineered nanoreactors for cascading catalytic reactions, remain great challenges in the field of targeted and specific cancer diagnostics and therapy. The latest research advances in nanozyme-catalyzed cascade processes for cancer diagnosis and therapy are described in this article. Here, various sensing strategies are summarized, for tumor-specific diagnostics. Targeting mechanisms for tumor treatment using cascade nanozymes are classified and analyzed, "elements" and "dimensions" of cascade nanozymes, types, designs of structure, and assembly modes of highly active and specific cascade nanozymes, as well as a variety of new strategies of tumor targeting based on the cascade reaction of nanozymes. Finally, the integrated application of the cascade nanozymes systems in tumor-targeted and specific diagnostic therapy is summarized, which will lay the foundation for the design of more rational, efficient, and specific tumor diagnostic and therapeutic modalities in the future.

Keywords: cascade catalytic reaction; nanozymes; tumor microenvironment; tumor targeting therapy; tumor-specific diagnosis.