Sugar-disguised bullets for combating multidrug-resistant bacteria infections based on an oxygen vacancy-engineered glucose-functionalized MoO3-x photo-coordinated bienzyme

Molybdenum trioxide (MoO3) as an artificial enzyme has attracted extensive attention owing to its striking merits. However, it still faces the challenges in poor catalytic activity or low production yield which could be addressed through rational structure design and mechanism elucidation. Herein, a glucose-functionalized oxygen vacancy-enriched molybdenum oxide (G-MoO3-x) is prepared via an environmentally friendly, mass-production and low-temperature hydrothermal method. The G-MoO3-x exhibits excellent bienzyme-like (oxidase and peroxidase) activities and outstanding photothermal conversion capacity (∼45.98%). Systematic studies reveal that oxygen vacancy is the determining factor for both enzyme-like activity and photothermal effect of G-MoO3-x, and the peroxidase-like activity is positively correlated with oxygen vacancy concentration. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that the oxygen (O)-defect MoO3 has a more favorable impact on peroxidase-like activity than MoO3 edge. Through all-in-one synergistic effects, G-MoO3-x nanozyme exhibits significant broad-spectrum antibacterial properties against β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus as well as its biofilm.