Bienzymatic synergism of vanadium oxide nanodots to efficiently eradicate drug-resistant bacteria during wound healing in vivo.

Antibiotic resistance is a common phenomenon observed during treatment with antibacterials. Use of nanozymes, especially those with synergistic enzyme-like activities, as antibacterials could overcome this problem, but their synthesis is limited by their high cost and/or complex production process. Herein, vanadium oxide nanodots (VONDs) were prepared via a one-step bottom-up ethanol-thermal method using vanadium trichloride as the precursor. VONDs alone possess bienzyme mimics of peroxidase and oxidase. Accordingly, highly efficient antibacterials against drug-resistant bacteria can be obtained through synergistic catalysis; the oxidase-like activity decomposes O to generate superoxide anion radical (O) and hydroxyl radicals (OH), and the intrinsic peroxidase-like activity can further induce the production of OH from external HO. Consequently, HO concentration could decrease up to four magnitude orders with VONDs to achieve an antibacterial efficacy similar to that of HO alone. Wound healing in vivo further confirms the high antibacterial efficiency, good biocompatibility, and application potential of the synergistic antibacterial system due to the "nano" structure of VONDs. The method of synthesis of nanodot antibacterials described in this paper is inexpensive, and the results of this study reveal the multi-enzymatic synergism of nanozymes.