Boosting Selective Oxidation of Ethylene to Ethylene Glycol Assisted by In situ Generated H2 O2 from O2 Electroreduction.

Ethylene glycol is a useful organic compound and chemical intermediate for manufacturing various commodity chemicals of industrial importance. Nevertheless, the production of ethylene glycol in a green and safe manner is still a long-standing challenge. Here, we established an integrated, efficient pathway for oxidizing ethylene into ethylene glycol. Mesoporous carbon catalyst produces H2 O2 , and titanium silicalite-1 catalyst would subsequently oxidize ethylene into ethylene glycol with the in situ generated H2 O2 . This tandem route presents a remarkable activity, i.e., 86 % H2 O2 conversion with 99 % ethylene glycol selectivity and 51.48 mmol gecat -1 h-1 production rate at 0.4 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode. Apart from generated H2 O2 as an oxidant, there exists ⋅OOH intermediate which could omit the step of absorbing and dissociating H2 O2 over titanium silicalite-1, showing faster reaction kinetics compared to the ex situ one. This work not only provides a new idea for yielding ethylene glycol but also demonstrates the superior of in situ generated H2 O2 in tandem route.

Discovery of novel tubulin inhibitors targeting the colchicine binding site via virtual screening, structural optimization and antitumor evaluation.

The colchicine binding site of tubulin is a promising target for discovering novel antitumor agents which exert the antiangiogenic effect and are not susceptible to multidrug resistance. For identifying novel tubulin inhibitors, structure-based virtual screening was applied to identify hit 9 which displayed moderate tubulin polymerization inhibition and broad-spectrum in vitro antitumor activity. Structural optimization was performed, and biological assay revealed analog E27 displayed the best antitumor activity with IC50 values ranging from 7.81 µM to 10.36 µM, and improved tubulin polymerization inhibitory activity (IC50 = 16.1 µM). It significantly inhibited cancer cell migration and invasion, induced cell apoptosis and arrested the cell cycle at G2/M phase. Moreover, the apoptotic effect of E27 is related to the increased ROS level, the decrease of MMP, and the abnormal expression of apoptosis-related proteins. Taken together, these results suggested E27 was a promising lead compound for discovering novel tubulin-targeted antitumor agents.