Construction of Microreactors for Cascade Reaction and Their Potential Applications as Antibacterial Agents

Enzymatic cascade reactions in confined microenvironments play important roles in cellular chemical transformation. They also have important biotechnological and therapeutic applications. Here, enzymatic cascade microreactors (MRs) coupling glucose oxidase (GOx) and hemoglobin (Hb) (GOx-Hb MRs) were successfully fabricated by co-precipitation of GOx and Hb into a MnCO3 template, followed by the assembly of a multilayer film on a template surface, slight cross-linking, and final removal of MnCO3. In the presence of glucose with blood-relevant concentration, the GOx-Hb MRs exhibited a higher cascade reaction activity under mild acidic conditions than that under neutral conditions at physiological temperature. The GOx-Hb MRs effectively consumed glucose to generate HO· at pH = 5, which significantly inhibited bacterial growth and biofilm formation. This kind of enzymatic cascade microreactors might be useful for applications in biomedical fields.