Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease and has become a global concern, which greatly reduces the quality of patients’ life. It is generally believed that enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contributes to the progression of IBD. Therefore, the modulation of ROS concentration is an efficient path to relief IBD symptoms. In this work, ultrathin niobium carbide (UNC) nanosheets have been developed as a superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like antioxidant to harvest ROS. Compared with bulk Nb 2 C (BNC), UNC possesses the surface without the –F, -O, –OH suspension parts which provides abundant oxidized vacancies to trap the hydroxyl groups. Moreover, theoretical calculation has been adopted to explain the absorption mechanism and stability of UNC. In this work, it is revealed that UNC exhibits benign therapeutic functions both in vitro and in vivo. UNC not only inhibits hydroperoxide-induced cell death in vitro through reducing intracellular ROS levels, but also improves the severity and survival rates of colitis mice in vivo. We believe that this work can expand a new horizon on IBD treatment by adjusting ROS concentration and broaden the biological application of MXenes as well.