Nanozymes, featuring intrinsic biocatalytic effects and broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties, are emerging as a novel antibiotic class. However, prevailing bactericidal nanozymes face a challenging dilemma between biofilm penetration and bacterial capture capacity, significantly impeding their antibacterial efficacy. Here, this work introduces a photomodulable bactericidal nanozyme (ICG@hMnOx ), composed of a hollow virus-spiky MnOx nanozyme integrated with indocyanine green, for dually enhanced biofilm penetration and bacterial capture for photothermal-boosted catalytic therapy of bacterial infections. ICG@hMnOx demonstrates an exceptional capability to deeply penetrate biofilms, owing to its pronounced photothermal effect that disrupts the compact structure of biofilms. Simultaneously, the virus-spiky surface significantly enhances the bacterial capture capacity of ICG@hMnOx . This surface acts as a membrane-anchored generator of reactive oxygen species and a glutathione scavenger, facilitating localized photothermal-boosted catalytic bacterial disinfection. Effective treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus-associated biofilm infections is achieved using ICG@hMnOx , offering an appealing strategy to overcome the longstanding trade-off between biofilm penetration and bacterial capture capacity in antibacterial nanozymes. This work presents a significant advancement in the development of nanozyme-based therapies for combating biofilm-related bacterial infections.

Despite the promising advancements of in situ forming nanoassembly for the inhibition of tumor growth and metastasis, the lack of sufficient triggering sites and hardly controlling the forming position restrict their further developments. Herein, a smart transformable peptide-conjugated probe (DMFA) with enzyme cleavage-induced morphological change is designed for treatment on the tumor cell membrane. Specifically, after self-assembling into nanoparticles and anchoring on the cell membrane with sufficient interaction sites rapidly and stably, DMFA will be efficiently cleaved into α-helix forming part (DP) and β-sheet forming part (LFA) by overexpressed matrix metalloproteinase-2. Thus, the promoted Ca2+ influx by DP-induced cell membrane breakage and decreased Na+ /K+ -ATPase activity by LFA-assembled nanofibers wrapping the cells can inhibit PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, leading to the inhibition of tumor cell growth and metastasis. This peptide-conjugated probe undergoes in situ morphological transformation on the cell membrane, exhibiting great potential in tumor therapy.