Nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) can improve the oxidase-like activity of nanoceria and the enhancement is correlated with the type of NTP. This effect is demonstrated to be as a result of the coupling of the oxidative reaction with the NTP hydrolysis reactions, as the nanoceria has both oxidase-like and phosphatase-like activities. The differences reflect the different dephosphorylation catalytic activities of nanoceria to the NTP used. Furthermore, based on the NTP-promoted oxidase-like activity of nanoceria and the differences among the different types of NTPs, series effective and high-throughput colorimetric assays for single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing are developed.