Cold-Adaptive Nanomotors Empowered by Robust Fluorescent Clusterzymes for Low-Temperature ATP Detection.

Abstract

The low-temperature environment is unfavorable for the dynamic movement of a probe in an aqueous medium, thereby restricting the analytical performance of conventional biosensing systems. To overcome this limitation, cold-adaptive probes that can withstand low temperatures have garnered significant interest recently. Herein, we report a new strategy for constructing cold-adaptive nanoprobes by exploiting fluorescent clusterzymes with enzyme-like catalytic properties to fabricate self-propelled nanomotors. Platinum nanoclusters (PtNCs) with distinct catalase-mimic properties and blue fluorescence are assembled onto asymmetric hollow silica nanobottles, yielding fluorescent nanomotors with markedly enhanced mobility fueled by H2O2 (0.983 μm2s-1), which is largely retained even at 0 °C (0.715 μm2s-1). A low-temperature sensing platform was further constructed by loading adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-responsive rhodamine dye onto the PtNC-based nanomotors. At 0 °C, the sensing system achieves a response time of 6 min and a detection limit of 0.072 mM, representing a less than 20% decrease in performance compared with room temperature (22 °C), which is adequate for low-temperature detection. Notably, compared with the static sensing counterpart, the self-propelled system exhibits an 83.3% improvement in response speed and a 69.6% reduction in detection limit, highlighting the significant advantages of the self-propelled design under low-temperature conditions. By integrating the probe into an anti-freezing hydrogel, a portable low-temperature sensing platform was constructed, enabling successful visual detection of ATP under cold conditions. This work establishes a new paradigm for low-temperature adaptive probe design by leveraging the unique properties of metal clusterzyme-based cold-adapted nanomotors.

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