Catalytic enantioselective synthesis of selenium-containing atropisomers via C–Se bond formations

• Qi-Sen Gao,
• Zheng-Wei Wei and
• Zhi-Min Chen

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2447–2455, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.186

• containing both selenium and sulfone functionalities, highlighting the potential for further exploration of expanded catalyst and substrate scopes (Scheme 3). 3. Catalytic atroposelective synthesis of selenium-containing atropisomers by hydroselenation reactions of alkynes The catalytic enantioselective

Recent advances in Norrish–Yang cyclization and dicarbonyl photoredox reactions for natural product synthesis

• Peng-Xi Luo,
• Jin-Xuan Yang,
• Shao-Min Fu and
• Bo Liu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2315–2333, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.177

• known two-step sequence to 61, followed by Mitsunobu reaction, ester reduction, thioether oxidation, and silylation of the primary alcohol to furnish sulfone 64. The two key fragments – aldehyde 60 and sulfone 64 – were merged via Julia–Kocienski olefination to construct alkene 65. Treatment of 65 with

C2 to C6 biobased carbonyl platforms for fine chemistry

• Jingjing Jiang,
• Muhammad Noman Haider Tariq,
• Florence Popowycz,
• Yanlong Gu and
• Yves Queneau

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2103–2172, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.165

• benzo[a]carbazole (a very important scaffold in the pharmaceutical industry) from the commercially available 2-phenylindole and bio-renewable 1-hydroxypropan-2-one (acetol) using a sulfone-containing Brønsted acidic medium as catalyst. The process was applied to a number of substituted 2-phenylindoles

Enantioselective desymmetrization strategy of prochiral 1,3-diols in natural product synthesis

• Lihua Wei,
• Rui Yang,
• Zhifeng Shi and
• Zhiqiang Ma

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1932–1963, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.151

• triflate 46, alkylation with sulfone 47 via treatment with butyllithium and hexamethylphosphoramide (HMPA) yielded the coupling product 48 as a mixture of diastereoisomers in 60% yield. Ultimately, single-electron reduction removed both the sulfone and benzyl groups of 48, furnishing (S)-α-tocotrienol (49

• transesterification. After substrates screening, diol 65 was selected and converted into monoester 66 in 95% yield with 98% ee using vinyl acetate and lipase PS from Pseudomonas cepacia. Four subsequent steps afforded sulfone 67, and the following alkylation with fragment 68 in the presence of butyllithium and HMPA

[3 + 2] Cycloaddition of thioformylium methylide with various arylidene-azolones in the synthesis of 7-thia-3-azaspiro[4.4]nonan-4-ones

• Daniil I. Rudik,
• Irina V. Tiushina,
• Anatoly I. Sokolov,
• Alexander Yu. Smirnov,
• Alexander R. Romanenko,
• Alexander A. Korlyukov,
• Andrey A. Mikhaylov and
• Mikhail S. Baranov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1791–1798, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.141

• , proved to be a more promising derivatization approach (Scheme 4). Thus, the short-term action of hydrogen peroxide successfully converted compounds 7e, 7c, and 9e to their corresponding sulfoxides 11e, 11c, and 13e. However, prolonged oxidation led not only to sulfone formation but also to deeper

• transformations. For example, compound 7e underwent both sulfone formation and S/O atoms exchange in the heterocyclic core. For derivatives 6 and 8, any oxidation conditions resulted in even more complex product mixtures (presumably due to the additional sulfur atom in the second ring), whose structures could not

Recent advances in oxidative radical difunctionalization of N-arylacrylamides enabled by carbon radical reagents

• Jiangfei Chen,
• Yi-Lin Qu,
• Ming Yuan,
• Xiang-Mei Wu,
• Heng-Pei Jiang,
• Ying Fu and
• Shengrong Guo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1207–1271, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.98

• oxidation, ultimately forming the final oxindole product 76a. Interestingly, the reaction proceeds via two distinct pathways depending on the presence of an alkene radical acceptor, with DMSO or dimethyl sulfone as the byproduct. In addition to transition-metal and photocatalyzed systems, several metal-free

Synthetic approach to borrelidin fragments: focus on key intermediates

• Yudhi Dwi Kurniawan,
• Zetryana Puteri Tachrim,
• Teni Ernawati,
• Faris Hermawan,
• Ima Nurasiyah and
• Muhammad Alfin Sulmantara

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1135–1160, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.91

• approach for constructing Morken’s C2–C12 fragment In 2019, Uguen and co-workers introduced a strategy to assemble Morken’s C2–C12 intermediate 20 [41]. Their approach utilized iterative base-catalyzed condensation of sulfone compounds with epoxides. As illustrated in Scheme 1, the monoalcohol 20 was

• prepared via PMB removal of compound 21, which, in turn, was obtained through desulfonylation of compound 22. Compound 22 originated from the condensation of epoxide 23a with sulfone 26, which was produced by desilylation of 25 followed by converting the resulting primary alcohol into a sulfone group

• . Intermediate 25 was prepared through TBDMS protection and desulfonylation of 24, itself derived from the condensation of epoxide 23b and sulfone 27. The precursor 27 was synthesized from Roche ester 29 via a sequence of steps, including reduction, three-carbon homologation, and enzymatic desymmetrization. An

Biobased carbon dots as photoreductants – an investigation by using triarylsulfonium salts

• Valentina Benazzi,
• Arianna Bini,
• Ilaria Bertuol,
• Mariangela Novello,
• Federica Baldi,
• Matteo Hoch,
• Alvise Perosa and
• Stefano Protti

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1024–1030, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.84

• material was observed, thus pointing out the key role of CDs in the process. Some additional irradiation was carried out to identify the aryl radical released during the irradiation. Unfortunately, when the reaction was conducted in the presence of both furan and allyl phenyl sulfone [27] no arylation

Study of tribenzo[b,d,f]azepine as donor in D–A photocatalysts

• Katy Medrano-Uribe,
• Jorge Humbrías-Martín and
• Luca Dell’Amico

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 935–944, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.76

• : diphenyl sulfone (4), dibenzo[b,d]thiophene 5,5-dioxide (5), and 9,9-dimethyl-9H-thioxanthene 10,10-dioxide (6). The selection of these scaffolds was aimed at investigating the effect of conjugation and rigidity/flexibility on the presence of the same donor (TBA, a). In the case of the D–A compounds 4a and

Origami with small molecules: exploiting the C–F bond as a conformational tool

• Patrick Ryan,
• Ramsha Iftikhar and
• Luke Hunter

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 680–716, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.54

Formaldehyde surrogates in multicomponent reactions

• Cecilia I. Attorresi,
• Javier A. Ramírez and
• Bernhard Westermann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 564–595, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.45

• this case, the mechanism appears to proceed through the formation of free radical species, where APS plays the role of oxidant and radical activator of DMSO, generating reactive radical species of DMSO or dimethyl sulfone that react with the nitrogen of saccharine compound 19 without the need for a

Photomechanochemistry: harnessing mechanical forces to enhance photochemical reactions

• Francesco Mele,
• Ana M. Constantin,
• Andrea Porcheddu,
• Raimondo Maggi,
• Giovanni Maestri,
• Nicola Della Ca’ and
• Luca Capaldo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 458–472, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.33

• (12.3, 0.2 mmol), tosyl chloride (12.4, 2 equiv), and tris(4-methoxyphenyl)amine (10 mol %) was milled in the presence of 100 wt % of SAOED at 30 Hz for 3 h, sulfone 12.5 was obtained in 89% yield after isolation. The synthesis of 12.5 was scaled up to 15 mmol scale, obtaining the desired product in a

Synthesis of new condensed naphthoquinone, pyran and pyrimidine furancarboxylates

• Kirill A. Gomonov,
• Vasilii V. Pelipko,
• Igor A. Litvinov,
• Ilya A. Pilipenko,
• Anna M. Stepanova,
• Nikolai A. Lapatin,
• Ruslan I. Baichurin and
• Sergei V. Makarenko

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 340–347, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.24

• furopyran, furocoumarin [9][10], and furopyrimidine series [11][12]. It is known that the main approaches to the synthesis of naphtho[2,3-b]furan-4,9-diones are reactions of hydroxynaphthalene-1,4-dione with ethane-1,2-diol [13], chloroacetaldehyde [14], ethenyl methyl sulfone [15], or ethenyl acetate [16

Synthesis of disulfides and 3-sulfenylchromones from sodium sulfinates catalyzed by TBAI

• Zhenlei Zhang,
• Ying Wang,
• Xingxing Pan,
• Manqi Zhang,
• Wei Zhao,
• Meng Li and
• Hao Zhang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 253–261, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.17

• which the thiosulfonate was cleaved and then dimerized to form the disulfide. The reaction of sodium p-toluenesulfinate and styrene resulted in the generation of the corresponding vinyl sulfone (Scheme 5, reaction 2), suggesting the formation of p-toluenesulfonyl iodide during the reaction [50][51

Advances in the use of metal-free tetrapyrrolic macrocycles as catalysts

• Mandeep K. Chahal

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3085–3112, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.257

• different electronic properties (18, 25–41, Figure 6) were screened as catalysts for the sulfa-Michael addition of tert-butyl benzylmercaptan 42 to phenyl vinyl sulfone (43). Without the addition of a porphyrin, no product was formed. Among the non-alkylated porphyrins (18, 25–32) only the ones containing

Advances in radical peroxidation with hydroperoxides

• Oleg V. Bityukov,
• Pavel Yu. Serdyuchenko,
• Andrey S. Kirillov,
• Gennady I. Nikishin,
• Vera A. Vil’ and
• Alexander O. Terent’ev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2959–3006, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.249

Copper-catalyzed yne-allylic substitutions: concept and recent developments

• Shuang Yang and
• Xinqiang Fang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2739–2775, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.232

• ). Further control experiments and DFT calculations show that during the catalytic process, tertiary amine directly participates as a nucleophilic reagent to give the ammonium salt, which then releases dimethylaminium to provide the final product (Scheme 12). Chiral allylic sulfone compounds can be easily

• -, stereo-, and enantioselectivities, resulting in a series of chiral yne-allylic sulfone compounds with different substituents (Scheme 13, 14a–q). Due to the high steric hindrance of the γ-site, nucleophilic substitutions preferentially occur at the α-site. Through subsequent control experiments, they

O,S,Se-containing Biginelli products based on cyclic β-ketosulfone and their postfunctionalization

• Kateryna V. Dil and
• Vitalii A. Palchykov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2143–2151, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.184

• obtained products are characterized by the following signals: aromatic ring protons (6.25–8.23 ppm), Ar–CH group proton singlet (5.13–5.44 ppm), broadened NH singlets (7.78–10.89 ppm), as well as the corresponding signals of successive 3 × CH2 groups of the sulfone fragment (2.18–3.34 ppm). Such a set of

Regioselective quinazoline C2 modifications through the azide–tetrazole tautomeric equilibrium

• Dāgs Dāvis Līpiņš,
• Andris Jeminejs,
• Una Ušacka,
• Anatoly Mishnev,
• Māris Turks and
• Irina Novosjolova

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 675–683, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.61

• substrates, but the step sulfoxide → sulfone was entirely slower and required stirring overnight (except for 8d (R = iC3H7)). With 2-chloro-6,7-dimethoxy-4-sulfonylquinazolines 8 in hand, we started to explore the reactivity in SNAr reactions (Scheme 5). Sulfonyl group dance reactions did not work in

Green and sustainable approaches for the Friedel–Crafts reaction between aldehydes and indoles

• Periklis X. Kolagkis,
• Eirini M. Galathri and
• Christoforos G. Kokotos

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 379–426, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.36

Synthesis of π-conjugated polycyclic compounds by late-stage extrusion of chalcogen fragments

• Aissam Okba,
• Pablo Simón Marqués,
• Kyohei Matsuo,
• Naoki Aratani,
• Hiroko Yamada,
• Gwénaël Rapenne and
• Claire Kammerer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 287–305, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.30

• , were synthesized as direct soluble precursors of PBIs 6a,b, along with the corresponding oxides, namely sulfoxides 4a,b and sulfone 5 (Scheme 4). An X-ray crystal structure of the extended thiepine 3b confirmed its bent structure, with a protrusion of the sulfur atom out of the π-surface (Figure 1). As

• perylene moiety was next tested upon different stimuli, such as electron injection, thermal activation and photoirradiation. Importantly, the dinaphthothiepine S,S-dioxide, i.e., the sulfone soluble precursor 5, failed to deliver PBI whatever the activation mode (Scheme 4, bottom). For dinaphthothiepine 3

• selective oxidation of thiepine and selenepine to give rise to the corresponding sulfoxide 29b, selenoxide 29c and sulfone 30b in excellent yields. All the prepared chalcogen-doped HBC derivatives exhibit good solubility in organic solvents, in line with their highly distorted saddle-shaped or helical

Using the phospha-Michael reaction for making phosphonium phenolate zwitterions

• Matthias R. Steiner,
• Max Schmallegger,
• Larissa Donner,
• Johann A. Hlina,
• Christoph Marschner,
• Judith Baumgartner and
• Christian Slugovc

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 41–51, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.6

• University of Technology, Stremayrgasse 9, 8010 Graz, Austria 10.3762/bjoc.20.6 Abstract The reactions of 2,4-di-tert-butyl-6-(diphenylphosphino)phenol and various Michael acceptors (acrylonitrile, acrylamide, methyl vinyl ketone, several acrylates, methyl vinyl sulfone) yield the respective phosphonium

• carbanion [13][14]. Also with other Michael acceptors such as methyl vinyl ketone, several acrylates as well as methyl vinyl sulfone the reaction proceeds smoothly under the same reaction conditions (Scheme 1). Conversions of 1 are usually quantitative within 24 h and all phosphonium phenolates can be

Anion–π catalysis on carbon allotropes

• M. Ángeles Gutiérrez López,
• Mei-Ling Tan,
• Giacomo Renno,
• Augustina Jozeliūnaitė,
• J. Jonathan Nué-Martinez,
• Javier Lopez-Andarias,
• Naomi Sakai and
• Stefan Matile

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1881–1894, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.140

• below that of unsubstituted NDIs despite stronger π acidity. Supported by experimental and computational data, this poor performance of dyad 46 was explained by lone-pair π interactions of the fullerene with the donating oxygens. These lone-pair π interactions were even more impactful on the sulfone

Radical chemistry in polymer science: an overview and recent advances

• Zixiao Wang,
• Feichen Cui,
• Yang Sui and
• Jiajun Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1580–1603, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.116

• by radical unzipping depolymerization under photon or β-irradiation (Scheme 20a). Similarly, poly(olefin sulfone) undergoes depolymerization upon irradiation of light or electron beams [193][194]. It is an alternating copolymer of 1-olefins and SO2, and therefore the decomposition products are mostly

• gaseous [195]. While the depolymerization in both systems has a thermodynamic origin [196], the mechanism of poly(olefin sulfone) depolymerization is much more complex. Bowmer et al. proposed a simultaneous radical/cationic process (Scheme 20b) [197]. Meanwhile, an anionic process is also possible in the

• using benzophenone. Depolymerization mechanism of common photoresists. (a) A possible mechanism of radiation decomposition of poly(methyl methacrylate). (b) A proposed mechanism of simultaneous radical/cationic decomposition of poly(olefin sulfone) upon radiation [197]. Proposed mechanisms of

Synthesis of ether lipids: natural compounds and analogues

• Marco Antônio G. B. Gomes,
• Alicia Bauduin,
• Chloé Le Roux,
• Romain Fouinneteau,
• Wilfried Berthe,
• Mathieu Berchel,
• Hélène Couthon and
• Paul-Alain Jaffrès

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1299–1369, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.96

• has similar cell toxicity than edelfosine-C18 on HL-60 leukemic cells [129][130]. The authors also reported that the sulfone 26.5 (Figure 26B) had similar cytotoxicity than edelfosine-C18. In 1987, the group of E. J. Modest reported that the thioether 26.4 featured comparable cytotoxicity than C18