Nanobiocatalysts and Nanozymes: Enzyme-Inspired Nanomaterials for Industrial and Biomedical Applications

Enzymes play a pivotal role in the human body, but their potential is not limited to just that. Scientists have successfully modified these enzymes as nanobiocatalysts or nanozymes for industrial or commercial use, either in the food, medicine, biotech or even textile industries. These nanobiocatalysts and nanozymes offer several advantages over enzymes, like better stability, improved shelf-life, increased percentage yield, and reuse potential, which is very difficult with normal enzymes. The various techniques of NBC synthesis using immobilization techniques like adsorption, covalent binding, affinity immobilization, and entrapment methods are briefly discussed. The enzymes are either entrapped or adsorbed on the nanocarrier matrices, which can be nanofibers, nanoporous carriers, or nanocontainers as nanobiocatalysts. We also highlight the challenges the nanobiocatalyst overcomes in the industrial production of some drugs like sitagliptin, montelukast, pregabalin, and atorvastatin. Also, the inactivation of an organophosphate or opioid poisoning treating agent, SSOPOX nanohybrid, is discussed in this paper. Nanozymes are intrinsic enzyme-like compounds, and they also show wide application in themselves. Their GQD/AGNP nanohybrid shows antibacterial potential; they can also be utilized in optical sensing to detect small molecules, ions, nucleic acids, proteins, and cancer cells. In this paper, various applications of these NBCs have been discussed, and their potential applications with examples are also mentioned. Nanoenzymes can address targeted drug delivery via the controlled release of drugs to increase the efficacy of anticancer drugs that minimize damage to healthy tissue or cells.