Synthesis of urease hybrid nanoflowers and their enhanced catalytic properties

• Synthesis of Cu2+ incorporated urease based-hybrid flower (HNF) with dramatically enhanced catalytic activity and stability.
• Studies of effect of experimental conditions on formation and activity mechanism of HNF.
• Activity and stability measurements of HNF.
• The hydrolysis of urea.

Increasing numbers of materials have been extensively used as platforms for enzyme immobilization to enhance catalytic activity and stability. Although stability of enzyme was accomplished with immobilization approaches, activity of the most of the enzymes was declined after immobilization. Herein, we synthesize the flower shaped-hybrid nanomaterials called hybrid nanoflower (HNF) consisting of urease enzyme and copper ions (Cu2+) and report a mechanistic elucidation of enhancement in both activity and stability of the HNF. We demonstrated how experimental factors influence morphology of the HNF. We proved that the HNF (synthesized from 0.02 mg mL−1 urease in 10 mM PBS (pH 7.4) at +4 °C) exhibited the highest catalytic activity of ∼2000% and ∼4000% when stored at +4 °C and RT, respectively compared to free urease. The highest stability was also achieved by this HNF by maintaining 96.3% and 90.28% of its initial activity within storage of 30 days at +4 °C and RT, respectively. This dramatically enhanced activity is attributed to high surface area, nanoscale-entrapped urease and favorable urease conformation of the HNF. The exceptional catalytic activity and stability properties of HNF can be taken advantage of to use it in fields of biomedicine and chemistry.

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