Single amino acid bionanozyme for environmental remediation

Abstract Enzymes are extremely complex catalytic structures with immense biological and technological importance. Nevertheless, their widespread environmental implementation faces several challenges, including high production costs, low operational stability, and intricate recovery and reusability. Therefore, the de novo design of minimalistic biomolecular nanomaterials that can efficiently mimic the biocatalytic function (bionanozyme) and overcome the limitations of natural enzymes is a key goal in biomolecular engineering. Here, we report an exceptionally simple yet highly active and robust single amino acid bionanozyme that can catalyze the rapid oxidation of environmentally toxic phenolic contaminates and serves as an ultrasensitive tool to detect biologically important neurotransmitters, similar to the laccase enzyme. While inspired by the laccase catalytic site, the substantially simpler copper-coordinated bionanozyme is ∼5400-fold more cost-effective, 10-fold more efficient, and 36-fold more sensitive compared to the natural protein. Furthermore, the designed mimic is stable under extreme conditions (pH, ionic strength, temperature, storage time), markedly reusable for several cycles and display broad substrate specificity. These findings hold great promise in the development of efficient bionanozyme for analytical chemistry, environmental protection, and biotechnology.