A peroxidase-like single-atom Fe-N5 active site for effective killing human lung adenocarcinoma cells

Single-atom catalyst (SAC) is one of the newest catalysts, and attracts people’s wide attention in cancer therapy based on their characteristics maximum specific catalytic activity high stability. We designed synthesized a Fe-N decorated graphene nanosheet (Fe-N5/GN SAC) with coordination number five. Through enzymology theoretical calculations, Fe-N5/GN SAC has outstanding intrinsic peroxidase-like due to single-atom Fe site five-N-coordination structure. explored its potential lung therapy, found that it could kill human adenocarcinoma cells (A549) by decomposing hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) under acidic microenvironment three-dimensional (3D) cell model. Our study demonstrates promising application highly efficient sites for treatment.