Engineering vanadium carbide MXene as multienzyme mimetics for efficient in vivo ischemic stroke treatment

Excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced inflammatory response considerably impedes the neurological functional recovery after ischemia/reperfusion injury. Thus, nanozymes with robust antioxidative properties and anti-inflammatory activities possess enormous possibilities for ischemic stroke therapy. Herein, a two-dimensional (2D) vanadium carbide (V2C) MXene-based nanozyme that can imitate four natural enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), has been employed against ischemic stroke. Benefiting from these enzyme-like activities, the as-synthesized V2C MXene not only catalyzes harmful superoxide anion radical (O2•−) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into harmless water and oxygen, but also scavenges highly toxic hydroxyl radical (•OH), thereby substantially suppressing the intracellular ROS elevation. More importantly, 2D V2C MXene dramatically decreases the cerebral infarct volumes and exerts significant neuroprotection effects against ischemic stroke through alleviating oxidative stress, inhibiting cell apoptosis and counteracting inflammation. Additionally, 2D V2C MXene is an attractive nanoscale contrast agent for T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. This work demonstrates an applicative paradigm for 2D V2C MXene-based theranostic nanozyme against ROS-related brain diseases.