Platinum-decorated mesoporous gold nanozymes for ultrasensitive colorimetric detection of glucose, H₂O₂, and Cancer cells

Although numerous peroxidase (POD) mimics have been developed, most still suffer from limited stability and catalytic efficiency. In this work, platinum-decorated mesoporous gold (mesoAu@Pt) nanozymes with ultrahigh POD-like activity were synthesized via an in-situ growth strategy. The mesoporous gold nanostructures served both as carriers to stabilize Pt nanoparticles (PtNPs) and as a scaffold to enhance their catalytic activity. Owing to the uniform distribution of PtNPs, a single mesoAu@Pt particle exhibited exceptional catalytic efficiency, with a catalytic efficiency ( K cat ) of 1.05 × 10 7  s −1 . The optimized nanozyme enabled sensitive and selective colorimetric detection of both H₂O₂ and glucose, achieving ultralow detection limits of 0.1 μM and 0.4 μM, respectively, with wide linear ranges. The total turnaround time (TAT) was 15 min for H₂O₂ and 45 min for glucose. Furthermore, mesoAu@Pt successfully distinguished cancer cells from normal cells based on their endogenous H₂O₂ release, and demonstrated reliable performance in human serum samples with <6% relative error compared to a glucometer. These findings highlight the potential of mesoAu@Pt as a robust and versatile biosensing platform for blood glucose monitoring, cancer diagnostics, and next-generation point-of-care applications.