Imaging studies articles within Nature Chemistry

Featured

  • Article |

    Sequences of synthetic polymers are generally heterogeneous and dictate many of their physiochemical properties, but are challenging to determine. Now an imaging method, termed CREATS (coupled reaction approach toward super-resolution imaging), can count, localize and identify each monomer of single polymer chains during (co)polymerization.

    • Rong Ye
    • , Xiangcheng Sun
    •  & Peng Chen

  • Perspective |

    Bioresponsive hyperpolarized probes contain magnetic resonance signals that can be many orders of magnitude larger than those of common, thermally polarized probes. This Perspective discusses how bioresponsive hyperpolarized probes can be directly linked to biological events to give functional information, enabling the mapping of physiological processes and diseases in real time using magnetic resonance.

    • Goran Angelovski
    • , Ben J. Tickner
    •  & Gaoji Wang

  • Article |

    It is difficult to develop suitable fluorescent probes for live-cell nanoscopy, but a general strategy is now reported that can transform regular fluorophores into fluorogenic probes with excellent cell permeability and low unspecific background signals. Using this approach, probes in a variety of colours were developed for different cellular targets and used for wash-free, multicolour, live-cell confocal and STED microscopy.

    • Lu Wang
    • , Mai Tran
    •  & Kai Johnsson

  • News & Views |

    The beauty and activity of enzymes inspire chemists to tailor new and better non-biological catalysts. Now, a study reveals that the active sites within heterogeneous catalysts actively cooperate in a fashion phenomenologically similar to, but mechanistically distinct, from enzymes.

    • Bert M. Weckhuysen

  • Article |

    Nanocatalysts can undergo various dynamic phenomena that affect their activity, such as restructuring and spillover. Now, using spatially and temporally resolved imaging of individual catalytic reactions, cooperative communication between different sites within single palladium- and gold-based nanocatalysts, and between different nanocatalysts, has been observed during three distinct catalytic reactions.

    • Ningmu Zou
    • , Xiaochun Zhou
    •  & Peng Chen

  • Article |

    An important source of atmospheric hydroxyl radicals is from the dissociation of Criegee intermediates produced in alkene ozonolysis reactions. The dissociation dynamics of the prototypical CH3CHOO Criegee intermediate have now been determined. Complementary experimental and theoretical studies were carried out and the translational and internal energy distributions of the OH radical products were characterized.

    • Nathanael M. Kidwell
    • , Hongwei Li
    •  & Marsha I. Lester

  • News & Views |

    Spin-triplet excitations commonly migrate through direct electron exchange between neighbouring molecules. Now, experiments show that back-and-forth interconversion between spin-triplet and spin-singlet states can significantly speed up triplet migration in organic crystals.

    • Sean T. Roberts

  • News & Views |

    An extracellular ejection of zinc, known as a zinc spark, is triggered by the fertilization of a mammalian egg; however, the origin of this zinc was not clear. Now, a combination of four complementary techniques has revealed the source and provided an unprecedented quantification of the distribution of zinc in a maturing mammalian oocyte.

    • Kyle P. Carter
    •  & Amy E. Palmer

  • News & Views |

    For decades chemists have focused on increasing the brightness of fluorophores. In super-resolution microscopy, however, fluorophores that preferentially exist in a non-fluorescent state, but occasionally re-arrange into a fluorescent form, can give better results.

    • Gražvydas Lukinavičius
    •  & Kai Johnsson

  • Review Article |

    The complexity of living systems makes attempts to gain a molecular-level understanding of them a unique and inspiring challenge. This Review summarizes progress in the development of bioorthogonal reaction-based fluorescent probes used to follow the spatial and temporal dynamics of biologically important analytes within living systems.

    • Jefferson Chan
    • , Sheel C. Dodani
    •  & Christopher J. Chang

Browse broader subjects

Browse Imaging studies across other nature.com journals