Jun Zhang’s group developed a new kind of nonaromatic polymaleimides (A-PM) via anionic polymerization. By adjusting the reaction conditions, the emission colors of A-PM are readily tunable from blue, green to orange and red, which is rarely achieved in nonconventional luminophores. These unique properties endow A-PM promising for applications in encryption, ion detection, fingerprint identification, etc. This work not only sheds new lights on the rational regulation of photophysical properties of nonconventional luminophores, but also paves the way for their versatile applications.

The alkaline earth metal cations-bridged polyoxometalate anions nanoclusters subnanometer nanowires were prepared through a facile room-temperature reaction. These nanowires could form 3D networks in the dispersion, and thus locked volatile organic liquids and formed gels. This finding provides a new strategy for safe storage and transportation of organic liquids and recovery of spilled oil.

Ethylene glycol was synthesized from dimethyl oxalate hydrogenation at ambient pressure over fullerene modified copper catalyst. Fullerenes show electron buffering effect to stabilize cuprous species and boost the copper catalysis. This finding provides a novel strategy for the design of stable catalysts using fullerenes as a molecular promoter.

Using in situ electron microscopy, it was directly observed that subcell flexibility of the zeolite framework occurred when benzene as a guest molecule was adsorbed into the straight channels of ZSM-5 zeolite nanosheets, where the opening pores stretched along the longest direction of confined benzene molecules with a maximum aspect change of 15%. This flexibility originates mainly from the topologically soft silicon-oxygen-silicon hinges between rigid tetrahedral SiO₄ units, which is very important for understanding molecular adsorption and shape selective catalysis.

By using supported gold-palladium alloyed nanoparticles in conjunction with a titanium silicate-1 (TS-1) catalyst, H₂O₂ can be generated in situ as needed, producing cyclohexanone oxime with >95% selectivity, comparable to the current industrial route. The ammoximation of several additional simple ketones is also demonstrated. Our approach eliminates the need to transport and store highly concentrated, stabilized H₂O₂, potentially achieving substantial environmental and economic savings. This approach could form the basis of an alternative route to numerous chemical transformations that are currently dependent on a combination of preformed H₂O₂ and TS-1, while allowing for considerable process intensification.

The chirality of nanoparticles determines their interaction with immune cells and the corre-spondent response in immune system. This finding provides a novel strategy for the design of vaccines to fight the infection of virus.

Hydrogen stored in a chemical form as liquid organic compounds and released in-situ on demand through efficient catalytic processes at low temperature is a highly desirable hydrogen storage and transportation strategy. A recent breakthrough was reported by the Ma group at Peking University and their collaborators. They have developed a novel Pt/α-MoC catalyst with atomically dispersed Pt over α-MoC. The exceptional hydrogen production activity comes from the outstanding ability of α-MoC for water dissociation and the unique synergy between Pt and α-MoC for methanol activation and successive reforming processes.

Judicious utilization of host-guest supramolecular interactions and flexibilities of both the host and guest enables metal-organic frameworks to show abnormal adsorption selectivities for the less polar, more saturated hydrocarbons, which is useful for efficient purification of high-value alkenes such as ethylene and butadiene.

Most proteins function in the cell where macromolecular crowding, confinement and quinary interaction are ubiquitous. More and more researches suggest that the complex cellular environment affects protein's structure and function. Therefore, for protein studies, the closer to native cellular environment, the more likely molecular mechanisms of proteins function could be revealed accurately. In-cell study of protein structure and function has been a frontier topic in protein science. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is the most promising technique for protein structural and functional assay at atomic level in complex environments. Here, we summarize our recent progress in protein structural and functional studies in macromolecular crowding, confinement, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells by NMR spectroscopy. Two model proteins, an intrinsic disordered protein α-synuclein and a multi-domain protein calmodulin, are employed to show how macromolecular crowding and confinement affect protein structure and function, respectively. Then in-cell NMR methods, including labeling strategy, cytoplasmic viscosity measurement, quinary interaction quantification are developed to obtain high-quality NMR spectra for facilitating protein structural and functional studies in living cells. Ca²⁺-induced calmodulin conformational transitions and GB1 protein structural determination in living Xenopus laevis oocytes, are shown here as typical applications of in-cell NMR. Finally, the conclusion and perspective of environmental effects on protein structure and function are presented.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 The effect of macromolecular crowding on protein structure and function
3 The effect of confinement on protein structure and function
4 In vivo NMR study of protein structure and function
4.1 Labeling strategies for in-cell protein NMR study
4.2 The determination of cytoplasmic viscosity and weak protein interactions in living cells
4.3 The observation of Ca²⁺-induced calmodulin conformational transitions in intact Xenopus laevis oocytes
4.4 Direct determination of protein structure in living Xenopus laevis oocytes
5 Conclusion