Themed collection 2023 Organic Chemistry Frontiers Review-type Articles

Ligand relay catalysis, which brings a new way to broaden the SMMLC strategy, has recently been developed and discussed. This strategy acts as a powerful way, broadening the range of catalytic transformations to construct highly functional molecules.

Privileged Feng ligands feature designer N,N’-dioxide amides with a unique conformational and coordination flexibility. This highlight summarizes the increasingly profound impact of Feng ligands on modern catalytic asymmetric synthesis.

This highlight discusses a recent study reported by Quan, Jiang and co-workers where a new class of macrocyclic arenes with well-defined cavities, namely methylene-bridged naphthotubes, were prepared.

Hypervalent iodine compounds became an important class of reagents in synthesis. In this review, we present reactivity patterns of five different structural classes of hypervalent iodine compounds and their complexes under visible light irradiation.

Switchable cyclophanes allow capture/release of guests to control their properties.

The last two years have witnessed unprecedentedly wide applications of acylsilanes in many fields well beyond pure organic synthesis. This highlight covers selected representative examples and focuses on their possible applications in the future.

Directing group-assisted selective C–H bond activation of six-membered N-heterocycles and benzo-fused N-heterocycles has been reported.

Molecules with spiro-linked π-conjugated structures have attracted considerable attention in the realm of organic functional materials due to their advantageous structural features.

This review highlights the recent progress in the electrochemical difunctionalization of alkenes and alkynes involving C–S/Se bond formation to access organochalcogen frameworks.

In this review, we elaborate and discuss the recent applications of straight-chain amino-α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds as versatile synthons in organocatalytic reactions for the creation of five- and six-membered saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycles.

This review summarizes the latest achievements in photochemical and electrochemical strategies for the synthesis of sulfonyl fluorides and focuses on the novel features and proposed mechanisms.

This review focuses on the eight-shaped double ring structure of tetraphenylethylene, summarizes the research progress of structures, ionic molecular structures and metal molecular structures, and looks forward to its future development direction.

This review summarizes the recent progress in borylation driven by BX₃ in the fields of organic synthesis and drug synthesis.

The recent advancements in single-electron nucleophilic organocatalysis that facilitates single-electron transfer between substrates through the formation of a covalent intermediate were summarized based on the type of catalyst.

The recent advances in trifluoroethylation reactions were summarized based on the bond formation: C(sp)–CH₂CF₃, C(sp²)–CH₂CF₃, C(sp³)–CH₂CF₃, and X (X = N, O, S, Se)–CH₂CF₃.

This feature article summarizes the developments in fluorinated carbene transformations, and their consequent C–F functionalization in a cascade platform.

This review summarizes recent progress in metal-mediated radiofluorination studies for C–¹⁸F bond formation to provide organofluorine-18 compounds.

Vinylene carbonate (VC) has emerged as a promising coupling partner to participate in various attractive C–H conversions and implement an increasing number of novel reactions. In this review, we provide a summary of the advancements achieved in metal-catalyzed C–H functionalization using VC.

During the past decade, photo- and electrochemical reactions proceeding via single-electron-transfer (SET) triggered radical pathways have emerged as an indispensable strategy for the efficient formation of chemical bonds.

This minireview describes the applications of β-trifluoromethylated enones in diverse asymmetric catalytic transformations since 2008, and incorporates the mechanistic aspects, involving the key mechanistic intermediates and the reaction pathways.

Celastraceae sesquiterpene alkaloids display an array of biological properties and comprise oxygenated dihydroagarofuran cores often adorned with pyridyl macrodilactone bridging ligands. Here, the history and syntheses of these ligands are reviewed.

.This review summarizes recent developments in electrochemical C–H amination, highlighting key inspirations and proposed mechanisms behind these sustainable oxidation-free approaches for constructing C–N bonds directly from C–H bonds.

A summary of the various ring opening reactions of strained and unstrained cycloalkanols is elaborated in the present review. Key emphasis on the reactivities pertaining to cyclopropanols, cyclobutanols and higher unstrained analogues is provided.

This review highlights the recent advances in radical acylated difunctionalization of unsaturated carbon–carbon bonds and focuses on the mechanistic insights of these transformations.

Photogenerated ketenes simplify and accelerate the synthesis of diverse cyclic architectures and demonstrate their promising applications in flow chemistry.

This review highlights recent advances in stereoselective carbon–heteroatom bond forming reactions, including C–N, C–O, C–S, C–F, C–P, etc., that were enabled by NHC organocatalysis with a focus on new activation modes and reactive intermediates.

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the progress in palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions, with an emphasis on how ligand characteristics affect the chemoselectivity of aryl (pseudo)halides.

This review summarizes the recently developed photocatalytic strategies for the installation of the formyl group into various scaffolds.

This review will highlight several recent and lesser-reviewed works related to the preparation of chiral nanographenes, specifically focusing on structures prepared by non-Scholl methods.

This review will focus on the electrochemical synthesis of diversified functionalized oxindole derivatives through C-S, C-O, C-C, C-Se, and C-N bond formation over the past decade.

The latest achievements in transition-metal-catalyzed enantioselective defluorinative coupling reactions have been comprehensively summarized on the basis of the classification of transition-metal catalysts.

The synthesis and transformation of α-oxylboronates including their C–B bond and C–O bond functionalizations are reviewed.

A summary of the chemical syntheses of bacterial non-2-ulosonic acids and their derivatives via de novo synthetic approaches starting from non-sugar compounds and total synthesis starting from sugar material.

This review summarizes the advances in the field of intramolecular kinetic resolution (KR) mediated by non-enzymatic catalysts. The relative classification of intramolecular KR is accomplished and several categories of reactions are discussed.

The synthetic and mechanistic aspects of the role of the trisulfide radical anion S₃˙⁻ in organic chemistry are reviewed.

This review highlights the recent advances in both electrochemical borylation and hydroboration to synthesize organoboron compounds and electrochemical transformation of organoboron compounds to construct carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds.

This review focuses on the very recent advances (from 2020 to the beginning of 2023) in enantioselective catalytic reactions for the construction of oxa-quaternary stereocenters.

This review summarizes a view of the advances in the catalytic asymmetric α-functionalization of vinylogous nucleophilic species, the content of which is categorized based on the type of vinylogous donor.

Chiral phosphates have successfully been used as ligands in asymmetric metal-catalysis. This Minireview discusses the most recent examples, including main-group catalysis, transition-metal catalysis and catalysis by rare-earth metals.

Recent advances in the electrochemical generation of 1,3-dicarbonyl radicals from C–H bonds and their mechanistic insights and synthetic applications have been summarized.

This review summarizes the recent advances in cyclization reactions involving pyridinium 1,n-zwitterions (n = 4 and 5) and highlights the applications of pyridinium 1,n-zwitterions (n = 4 and 5) in the efficient construction of heterocycles.

Dirhodium-catalyzed transformations, not limited to carbene and nitrene transfer reactions, are reviewed, including cycloisomerization, hetero-Diels–Alder (HDA) reactions, ene reactions, arylation, radical oxidation reactions and C–H activation, etc.

The recent advances in the supramolecular assembly of BODIPY and aza-BODIPY dyes are reviewed, emphasizing the control over the kinetic pathway complexity of this class of dyes, and the prospects for future research are summarized.

This review summarizes the synthesis and reactivity of N-aminopyridinium salts, discusses applications in organic synthesis, and highlights the potential for these reagents to enable novel synthetic disconnections and innovations.

Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) have emerged as an important branch in organic synthesis for the creation of complex molecular structures. This review is focused on gold-catalyzed MCRs with a special emphasis on the recent developments.

In this Review, the underrecognized utilities of the cyclopropylcarbinyl cation chemistry are summarized in cyclopropane synthesis and skeletal rearrangements, and their applications in natural product total synthesis are highlighted.

Juggling between reactivity and selectivity, free radical oxidation offers a unique means to synthesize natural products in a direct and efficient way. The case study of sesquiterpenes is illustrative of how modern total synthesis should be conducted.

This review focuses on the representative examples and most recent progresses in transition-metal-catalyzed cleavage of carbon–alkyne bonds in alkynoic acids, propargylic alcohols, alkynyl esters, and alkynyl ketones.

The aza-Friedel–Crafts (aza-FC) reaction is a very powerful tool for forming C–C and C–N bonds, based on an acid-catalyzed addition of electron-rich aromatic compounds to imines.

Active ester method is an efficient strategy to address the notorious racemization/epimerization issue of peptide bond formation. Herein, the pros and cons of using active esters for peptide synthesis were systematically summarized and analyzed.

Functionalization of alkenes/alkynes is a highly effective route to achieve molecular complexity. This review summarizes recent progresses on the 1,2-difunctionalization/hydrofunctionalization of unactivated alkenes/alkynes with C−S bond formation.

This article describes how the synergy between chemistry and biology facilitated the development of cyclic dinucleotides as a potential new treatment for cancer.

In this tutorial, reaction scopes, limitations and mechanisms of radical acylations are summarized and discussed according to reaction types and catalytic systems.

This review provides recent advances and insights into photoirradiation reactions of acylsilanes, notably via key nucleophilic siloxycarbene intermediates. Nucleophilic addition, insertion reaction, and cyclization are discussed in terms of reaction mechanism and scope.

We provide a comprehensive overview of recent progress in this rapidly growing field by summarizing catalytic annulation reactions of ortho-alkynyl aryl ketones which involve carbo- and oxo-cyclization patterns with consideration of their mechanisms and applications.

In this review, we highlight the recent synthetic methodology development for the formation of C–N and C–O bonds via visible-light-driven nickel catalysis, with in-depth discussions with reaction designs and mechanistic scenarios.

C–C and C–S bonds are valuable in organic transformation for synthesizing various bioactive heterocycles.

The late stage functionalization (LSF) is a distinctive approach for accelerating the discovery of structure–activity relationships (SARs) and optimising ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) profiles.

This review summarises the significant advancements of allyl–allyl cross-coupling reaction that have provided access to a wide variety of 1,5 dienes and its application in natural product synthesis.

Direct coupling of inert C–H bonds by NHCs offers efficient routes for the synthesis of functional molecules. Consequently, this highlight presents the latest advancements in NHC-catalyzed latent C–H functionalization involving the ET/PT pathways and HAT pathway.

The facile deprotonation of fluoroaryl-substituted alkylboranes or alkylboron cations readily leads to anionic boratalkenes or neutral boraalkenes, respectively. These BC double bond systems exhibit an increasing variety of chemical reactivities.

This frontier article summarizes the recent developments in base metal-catalyzed regioselective cage B–H functionalization of carboranes and discusses the related challenging issues.

This study summarizes the research progress of schwarzite carbon and presents the theoretical prediction of key units in Schwarzite P192.

Our recent studies on abundant metal (Fe, Cu, and Mn) catalyzed carbonylative transformation of alkyl bromides and alkyl chlorides have been discussed here.