Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are harmful organic compounds remaining in the environment for a long time, but are slowly degraded in the environment. Structural elucidation of the scarce amount of the POP degradation products is highly desired to understand the degradation process of the POPs. Herein, we demonstrated the crystalline sponge (CS) method, a crystallization-free X-ray crystallography technique on the nanogram to microgram scale, is quite efficient for the analysis of a series of representative POP compounds. The X-ray structures of three POPs were reported for the first time. Halogen interactions take a key role in the molecular recognition in the CS pores.
Live‐cell sensing of telomerase activity with simple and efficient strategies remains a challenging target. In this work, a strategy for telomerase sensing by using hybridization‐sensitive fluorescent oligonucleotide probes is reported. In the presence of telomerase and dNTPs, the designed supporting strand was extended and generated the hairpin structure that catalyzed the next telomerase extending reaction. The special extension mechanism increased the local concentration of another supporting strand and telomerase, which resulted in enhanced telomerase activity. The hybridization‐sensitive oligonucleotide probes bound to the hairpin catalyst and generated turn‐on fluorescence. This method realized the sensing of telomerase activity in HeLa cell extract with a detection limit below 1.6×10−6 IU μL−1. The real‐time in situ observation of telomerase extension was achieved in living HeLa cells. This strategy has been applied to monitor the efficiency of telomerase‐targeting anticancer drugs in situ.
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