Bioactive metallic nanozymes-based electrochemical biosensors for biomarker detection: Progress and prospects

Nanozymes, as a branch of artificial enzymes, break the constraints of natural enzymes for instance their expensive cost, difficult purification and poor stability. In recent years, with the rapid development in nano-synthesis technology, catalytic analysis, biosensing, and materials theoretical computation, the researches on nanozymes have made remarkable progress. The unique advantages of nanozymes make them promising to replace natural enzymes in many typical applications. Among them, metallic nanozymes have received much attention in electrochemical sensing due to their excellent catalytic activity, stability and electrical properties. To help researchers understand the current investigations of metallic nanozymes, the recent research progress of metallic nanozymes from materials to electrochemical sensing applications are presented. The enzyme-like catalytic activity of metallic nanozymes and single and multi-metal component metallic nanozymes are described. Factors affecting the activity of metallic nanozymes are briefly discussed. We also discuss the wide range of applications of metallic nanozymes in electrochemical biosensing. The directions and challenges of metallic nanozymes in electrochemical sensing are discussed and summarized. The authors expect that this review will inspire the research of metallic nanozymes in electrochemical sensing and facilitate the development of nanozymes.