Copper single-atom nanozyme with intelligent capture and photo-enhanced activity for controlling plant bacterial diseases.

Jiang, Hao; Xing, Yue; Ma, Zhifeng; Fan, Guangjin; Liu, Zhongwei; Yang, Song; Cai, Lin · Nat Commun · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Nanozymes hold promise for controlling plant bacterial diseases, but conventional ones suffer from low bacterial affinity, inefficient enzyme-like activity, and thus poor antibacterial efficacy. Here, we report a photo-enhanced copper single-atom (CuSA)-loaded ZnS@MoS<sub>2</sub> nanozyme with high affinity and efficient peroxidase (POD)-like activity. CuSA-loaded ZnS@MoS<sub>2</sub> exhibits higher efficacies against bacterial speck and bacterial wilt diseases in tomatoes, surpassing the commercial thiodiazole copper by 13.33% and 52.77%, respectively. Mechanistically, it catalyzes H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> to generate toxic hydroxyl radicals (·OH) via POD-like activity; near-infrared irradiation boosts this activity by lowering activation energy and accelerating mass transfer. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that CuSA-loaded ZnS@MoS<sub>2</sub> captures bacteria via Metal-O-P bonds on cell surfaces, reducing ·OH short-range quenching to enhance efficacy. This SA nanozyme design, integrating intelligent capture and photo-enhanced activity, offers an insight for plant bacterial disease control.