Palladium-catalyzed oxidative C-H/C-H cross-coupling of pyrazolo[1,5-a]azines with five-membered heteroarenes

The use of Pd(OAc)₂ as the catalyst and AgOAc as the oxidant enabled the direct regioselective oxidative C-H/C-H cross-coupling of pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines or pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyridines with various five-membered heteroarenes without the need of pre-activation and/or directing groups. Successful coupling partners include thiophenes, benzothiophenes, thiazoles, furans, oxazoles, indoles and imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines.

A Focused Review of Synthetic Applications of Lawesson's Reagent in Organic Synthesis

Lawesson's reagent (LR) is a well-known classic example of a compound with unique construction and unusual chemical behavior, with a wide range of applications in synthetic organic chemistry. Its main functions were rounded for the thionation of various carbonyl groups in the early days, with exemplary results. However, the role of Lawesson's reagent in synthesis has changed drastically, and now its use can help the chemistry community to understand innovative ideas. These include constructing biologically valuable heterocycles, coupling reactions, and the thionation of natural compounds. The ease of availability and the convenient usage of LR as a thionating agent made us compile a review on the new diverse applications on some common functional groups, such as ketones, esters, amides, alcohols, and carboxylic acids, with biological applications. Since the applications of LR are now diverse, we have also included some new classes of heterocycles such as thiazepines, phosphine sulfides, thiophenes, and organothiophosphorus compounds. Thionation of some biologically essential steroids and terpenoids has also been compiled. This review discusses the recent insights into and synthetic applications of this famous reagent from 2009 to January 2021.

Developing ligands for palladium(II)-catalyzed C-H functionalization: intimate dialogue between ligand and substrate

Homogeneous transition-metal-catalyzed reactions are indispensable to all facets of modern chemical synthesis. It is thus difficult to imagine that for much of the early 20th century, the reactivity and selectivity of all known homogeneous metal catalysts paled in comparison to their heterogeneous and biological counterparts. In the intervening decades, advances in ligand design bridged this divide, such that today some of the most demanding bond-forming events are mediated by ligand-supported homogeneous metal species. While ligand design has propelled many areas of homogeneous catalysis, in the field of Pd(II)-catalyzed C-H functionalization, suitable ligand scaffolds are lacking, which has hampered the development of broadly practical transformations based on C-H functionalization logic. In this Perspective, we offer an account of our research employing three ligand scaffolds, mono-N-protected amino acids, 2,6-disubstituted pyridines, and 2,2'-bipyridines, to address challenges posed by several synthetically versatile substrate classes. Drawing on this work, we discuss principles of ligand design, such as the need to match a ligand to a particular substrate class, and how ligand traits such as tunability and modularity can be advantageous in reaction discovery.