Speakers - 2026

Title: A single amino acid metal supramolecular assembly as a minimalist bionanozyme

Abstract

Metal centers coordinated within protein environments underpin the efficiency and specificity of natural enzymes, yet their complexity and fragility limit broader catalytic applications. Bioinspired minimalistic alternatives that integrate molecular self-assembly with metal coordination offer a promising route toward robust, enzyme-like systems. Here, we report a single-step, atom-economic synthesis of a copper–tyrosine (CuY) supramolecular assembly that functions as a minimalist bionanozyme. Structural and morphological analyses reveal the formation of an ordered, nanotubular, self-assembled architecture, confirmed by XRD, SAXS, FTIR, TGA, MS, and XPS, and supported by DFT calculations. The CuY assembly exhibits pronounced peroxidase-like activity toward o-phenylenediamine, with kinetic parameters quantitatively extracted using Michaelis–Menten analysis. Importantly, we demonstrated that the catalytic performance is not solely dictated by copper coordination but is strongly regulated by the dynamic self-assembled state of the CuY network. We showed that the coordination-driven remodelling of tyrosine assemblies induces a nonlinear modulation of catalytic activity, revealing a direct coupling between supramolecular organisation and enzyme-like function. This work represents the first report of enzyme-mimetic catalysis arising from a tyrosine based single amino acid–metal coordination system and highlights molecular self-assembly as a central regulatory element in minimalist catalytic networks. Our findings provide new insights into the design of life-like catalytic materials based on metal–amino acid assemblies.