Interfacing biomolecules with functional materials is a key strategy toward achieving externally-triggered biological function. The rational integration of functional proteins, such as enzymes, with plasmonic nanostructures that exhibit unique optical properties such as photothermal effect provides a means to externally control the enzyme activity. However, due to the labile nature of enzymes, the photothermal effect of plasmonic nanostructures is mostly utilized for the enhancement of the biocatalytic activity of thermophilic enzymes. In order to extend and utilize the photothermal effect to a broader class of enzymes, a means to stabilize the immobilized active protein is essential. Inspired by biomineralization for the encapsulation of soft tissue within protective exteriors in nature, metal-organic framework is utilized to stabilize the enzyme. This strategy provides an effective route to enhance and externally modulate the biocatalytic activity of enzymes bound to functional nanostructures over a broad range of operating environments that are otherwise hostile to the biomolecules.
The rational integration of biomolecules and functional nanostructures can enable remote-controlled biological processes such as molecular transport, catalysis, and molecular recognition. The photothermal ability of plasmonic nanostructures is highly attractive for optically modulating biomolecular processes such as biocatalysis. However, the studies pertaining to the photothermal enhancement of enzyme activity are mostly limited to thermophilic enzymes because of the thermal denaturation and loss of the activity of conventional enzymes at elevated temperatures. The lack of effective strategies for preserving the activity of immobilized enzymes at elevated temperatures hinders the potential use of plasmonic nanostructures as nanoheaters for the photothermal enhancement of enzyme activity. Here, we demonstrate a simple and highly effective strategy for stabilizing enzymes immobilized on plasmonic nanostructures by encapsulating them through in situ polymerization. Apart from enhanced thermal and biological stability, the encapsulation strategy provides enhancement of enzyme activity with an external optical trigger. The encapsulation strategy demonstrated here can be a highly attractive approach for designing remote-controlled biomolecular reactions.
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