  Cerium oxide nanoparticles have been shown to mimic oxidoreductase enzymes by
catalyzing the decomposition of organic substrates and reactive oxygen species.
This mimicry can be found in superoxide radicals and hydrogen peroxides,
harmful molecules produced in oxidative stress asso-ciated diseases. Despite
the fact that nanoparticle functionalization is mandatory in the context of
nanomedicine, the influence of polymer coatings on their enzyme-like catalytic
activity is poorly understood. In this work, six polymer coated cerium oxide
nanoparticles are prepared by associa-tion of 7.8 nm cerium oxide cores with
two poly(sodium acrylate) and four poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) grafted
copolymers with different terminal or anchoring end groups, such as phosphonic
acids. The superoxide dismutase-, catalase-, peroxidase- and oxidase-like
catalytic activities of the coated nanoparticles were systematically studied.
It is shown that the polymer coatings do not af-fect the superoxide
dismutase-like, impair the catalase-like and oxidase-like and surprisingly
im-proves peroxidase-like catalytic activities of cerium oxide nanoparticles.
It is also demonstrated that the particles coated with the PEG-grafted
copolymers perform better than the poly(acrylic acid) coated ones as
oxidoreductase-like enzymes, a result that confirms the benefit of having
phosphon-ic acids as anchoring groups at the particle surface.
