Rational design of gold nanoparticle-based artificial phosphatase with high activity comparable to natural phosphatase.

An artificial phosphatase, GoldAP, is rationally designed by installation of a metal-binding site onto a natural protein fragment to form a well-defined active centre on gold nanoparticles. GoldAP efficiently catalyses the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl phosphate in seconds with a kcat that is higher than that of Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase.