Artificial Enzyme-based Logic Operations to Mimic an Intracellular Enzyme-participated Redox Balance System

Abstract

Owing to the biocatalytic properties of artificial enzymes and the redox characteristic of glutathione, a colorimetric and resettable biological operation was successfully designed to mimic enzyme-participated redox balance in living systems. As one promising candidate of a natural enzyme, artificial enzyme possesses many advantages and has been used in numerous fields. Similar to natural enzymes, communications are also present between different artificial enzymes. With the assistance of four artificial enzymes, three simple biological logic gates were fabricated to help us deepen the understanding of communications between artificial enzymes. In the presence of glutathione, the system could be easily reset without any complicated procedures. We prospect that this work may push forward the exploration of communications between different artificial enzymes and the design of novel artificial enzyme-based biological gates or nanodevices. We hope that our mimic system may help us further understand the functioning of complex biological pathways in biological systems.

Keywords: ROS; enzymes; glutathione; logic gates; redox chemistry.