Enzyme-activated prodrug therapy (EAPT) is a widely-used and effective treatment method for cancer by converting prodrugs into drugs at the demanded time and space, whose key step is prodrug activation. Traditional prodrug activations are mostly dependent on natural enzymes, which are unstable, expensive and hard to be functionalized. The emerging enzyme mimics, especially the metal-contained enzyme mimics (MEMs), provide a potential chance for improving the traditional EAPT because of their high stability, low cost and easiness of preparation and functionalization. The existing MEMs can be classified into three categories: catalytic core-scaffold MEM (csMEM), nanoparticle MEM (npMEMs) and metal-organic framework (MOF) MEM (mofMEM). These MEMs can mimic diverse functions corresponding to natural enzymes, and some of which are potentially used in prodrug activation, such as DNase, RNase, carbonate esterase, etc. In this review, we briefly summarize the MEMs according to their structure and composition, and highlight the successful and potential applications for prodrug activation mediated by hydrolase-like and oxidoreductase-like MEMs.

酶促前药疗法（EAPT）是一种通过在需要的时间和空间将前药转化为药物而广泛使用的有效癌症治疗方法，其关键步骤是前药激活。传统的前药活化主要取决于天然酶，该酶不稳定，昂贵且难以功能化。新兴的酶模拟物，尤其是含金属的酶模拟物（MEMs），由于它们的高稳定性，低成本以及易于制备和功能化，为改进传统EAPT提供了潜在的机会。现有的MEM可以分为三类：催化核心支架MEM（csMEM），纳米颗粒MEM（npMEM）和金属有机骨架（MOF）MEM（mofMEM）。这些MEM可以模仿与天然酶相对应的多种功能，