Nanozymes: Versatile Platforms for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

Highlights This review introduces nanozymes that exhibit different enzymatic activities and emphasizes the advantages of nanozymes over natural enzymes. The roles of nanozymes in different cancer diagnostic and therapeutic technologies are summarized, explained by representative examples. The potential challenges of nanozyme-based cancer theranostics are outlined, and future research directions are outlooked. Natural enzymes usually suffer from high production cost, ease of denaturation and inactivation, and low yield, making them difficult to be broadly applicable. As an emerging type of artificial enzyme, nanozymes that combine the characteristics of nanomaterials and enzymes are promising alternatives. On the one hand, nanozymes have high enzyme-like catalytic activities to regulate biochemical reactions. On the other hand, nanozymes also inherit the properties of nanomaterials, which can ameliorate the shortcomings of natural enzymes and serve as versatile platforms for diverse applications. In this review, various nanozymes that mimic the catalytic activity of different enzymes are introduced. The achievements of nanozymes in different cancer diagnosis and treatment technologies are summarized by highlighting the advantages of nanozymes in these applications. Finally, future research directions in this rapidly developing field are outlooked.