Recent total synthesis of natural products leveraging a strategy of enamide cyclization

• Chun-Yu Mi,
• Jia-Yuan Zhai and
• Xiao-Ming Zhang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 999–1009, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.81

• first report by Stork in the 1950s [1][2][3]. Compared with enols, enamines benefit from the lone pair of electrons on the nitrogen atom, which enhances the nucleophilicity of the alkene, enabling it to react with a broad range of electrophiles. This activation mode of carbonyl compounds has been so

• iminium intermediates can serve as electrophiles. Due to the presence of an amide, the resulting iminiums from the enamides can be stabilized to take part in the second nucleophilic addition, though direct isomerization of the iminiums to the enamides is also possible (Figure 1). Guided by these

• the α-position of enamide to be an active cyclization site, with the alkyne tether acting as the nucleophile. Since it is well-established that alkynes, when activated by transition metals such as gold or platinum, can also function as electrophiles, modulating the reactivity of the decahydroquinoline

Recent advances in allylation of chiral secondary alkylcopper species

• Minjae Kim,
• Gwanggyun Kim,
• Doyoon Kim,
• Jun Hee Lee and
• Seung Hwan Cho

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 639–658, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.51

• largely depends on the choice of the nucleophilic organometallic species (Scheme 2). For example, the asymmetric copper-catalyzed allylic alkylation utilizing organometallic species 5 bearing a primary carbon–metal bond predominantly constructs the stereogenic center derived from electrophiles. The

• crucial advancement in this field. In particular, a key objective is developing regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselective allylic substitution reactions that can effectively construct enantioenriched stereogenic centers from either allylic electrophiles or organometallic nucleophiles [39][40]. This

• AAA methodologies. Review Copper-catalyzed stereospecific coupling of chiral organometallic species with allylic electrophiles The asymmetric construction of carbon–carbon bonds through copper-catalyzed AAA has emerged as a powerful synthetic tool in organic chemistry [41][42][43][44][45]. The

Vinylogous functionalization of 4-alkylidene-5-aminopyrazoles with methyl trifluoropyruvates

• Judit Hostalet-Romero,
• Laura Carceller-Ferrer,
• Gonzalo Blay,
• Amparo Sanz-Marco,
• José R. Pedro and
• Carlos Vila

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 533–540, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.41

• functionalization of 5-aminopyrazoles [26], we decided to study 4-alkenyl-5-aminopyrazoles as nucleophiles in the vinylogous addition reaction to electrophiles. Herein, we report the regioselective and diastereoselective functionalization of 4-cyclohexenyl-5-aminopyrazoles using alkyl trifluoropyruvates [27][28][29

• ] as electrophiles. It is noteworthy that the development of such vinylogous functionalizations of this nitrogen heterocycle with a fluorine-containing electrophile may be of interest to pharmaceutical and medicinal chemists. Results and Discussion 4-(Alkenyl)-5-aminopyrazoles 3 were selected as

Beyond symmetric self-assembly and effective molarity: unlocking functional enzyme mimics with robust organic cages

• Keith G. Andrews

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 421–443, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.30

• require rethinking cavity design, but will be achieved predominantly by synthetic advances, for instance by the internal functionalization of cavities with bifunctionality – chemical groups that simultaneously activate nucleophiles and electrophiles or otherwise stabilize charged pairs. Herein, I argue

Red light excitation: illuminating photocatalysis in a new spectrum

• Lucas Fortier,
• Corentin Lefebvre and
• Norbert Hoffmann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 296–326, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.22

• explores how this bismuth(I) complex undergoes oxidative addition with a variety of aryl electrophiles, including diazonium salts, iodonium salts, and challenging aryl iodides and aryl thianthrenium salts, typically requiring transition-metal catalysts (Figure 3). The reactivity of the N,C,N-bismuthinidene

• -bismuthinidene complex can drive formal oxidative addition even with substrates that exhibit high reduction potentials such as aryl iodides and aryl thianthrenium salts, thereby expanding the scope of aryl electrophiles that can be subjected to oxidative addition. This mechanistic advancement, combined with the

Molecular diversity of the reactions of MBH carbonates of isatins and various nucleophiles

• Zi-Ying Xiao,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 286–295, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.21

• an indole motif with a ketone and a γ-lactam moiety occur in numerous natural substances [1][2][3][4]. Isatins have many interesting aspects in organic reactions and potential applications. The versatile reactivity of isatins used both as an electrophiles and nucleophiles and their easy availability

Dioxazolones as electrophilic amide sources in copper-catalyzed and -mediated transformations

• Seungmin Lee,
• Minsuk Kim,
• Hyewon Han and
• Jongwoo Son

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 200–216, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.12

• electrophiles in various nucleophilic transformations due to their susceptibility to rapid decomposition into the corresponding isocyanates (Scheme 1a) [2][3]. They have attracted increasing interest as electrophilic amide sources in amidation using transition-metal catalysts such as ruthenium, rhodium, and

Recent advances in electrochemical copper catalysis for modern organic synthesis

• Yemin Kim and
• Won Jun Jang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 155–178, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.9

• amounts of copper reagents. Consequently, investigation into more practical and sustainable reactions remains an area of ongoing research [10]. Conventional cross-coupling reactions typically require C(sp2)-based electrophiles and nucleophiles as coupling partners. Generally, the reaction is initiated

• through oxidative addition, followed by transmetalation and reductive elimination, to obtain the desired product. Throughout the catalytic cycle, the catalyst undergoes conversion between [M]n and [M]n+2 (Figure 1) [11]. However, using alkyl electrophiles as coupling partners in cross-coupling reactions

• olefin addition reactions [20] conducted by various research groups, contributed to this area of research. Recently, the coupling reactions of C(sp3)-based electrophiles were explored using dual photoredox and copper catalysis, achieving selective radical coupling reactions involving alkyl halides [21

Recent advances in organocatalytic atroposelective reactions

• Henrich Szabados and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 55–121, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.6

• enantioselectivity during the nucleophilic addition, and the subsequent aromatization completes central-to-axial chirality conversion delivering products 68. Dynamic kinetic resolution of naphthylindoles 69 was performed by reaction with bulky electrophiles such as azodicarboxylates 70 or o-hydroxybenzyl alcohols 72

Efficient synthesis of fluorinated triphenylenes with enhanced arene–perfluoroarene interactions in columnar mesophases

• Yang Chen,
• Jiao He,
• Hang Lin,
• Hai-Feng Wang,
• Ping Hu,
• Bi-Qin Wang,
• Ke-Qing Zhao and
• Bertrand Donnio

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3263–3273, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.270

• increase their structural and functional diversity. In the modern organic synthetic tool-box, the fluoroarene nucleophilc substitution (SNFAr) reaction possesses many outstanding advantages in the synthesis of π-conjugated functional molecules: the electrophiles are plentiful and include cheaply available

Enantioselective regiospecific addition of propargyltrichlorosilane to aldehydes catalyzed by biisoquinoline N,N’-dioxide

• Noble Brako,
• Sreerag Moorkkannur Narayanan,
• Amber Burns,
• Layla Auter,
• Valentino Cesiliano,
• Rajeev Prabhakar and
• Norito Takenaka

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3069–3076, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.255

• toward electrophiles [14][15][16][17][18][19]. Consequently, all reported asymmetric catalytic aldehyde allenylation methods are currently limited to metal/metalloid reagents bearing R2 substituents [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], except for the methods with

gem-Difluorovinyl and trifluorovinyl Michael acceptors in the synthesis of α,β-unsaturated fluorinated and nonfluorinated amides

• Monika Bilska-Markowska,
• Marcin Kaźmierczak,
• Wojciech Jankowski and
• Marcin Hoffmann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2946–2953, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.247

• laboratory [25], for our model reaction. The reactions were carried out under inert gas conditions in anhydrous solvents (THF or DCM) at −78 °C for 3 h, using several bases and electrophiles (Table 1). The use of electrophiles in the first test reactions was to confirm the generation of a carbanion, which

• was to be evidenced by a substitution reaction at the alpha position. We started testing the different bases with lithium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide [39]. The reactions did not take place in the presence of LiHMDS (Table 1, entries 1 and 2), using either benzyl bromide or methyl iodide as electrophiles

• group, proving that both gem-difluoroalkenes and the double bond of product Z-9a were excellent Michael acceptors. This confirmed that electrophiles were not involved in the reaction. We therefore focused only on using n-BuLi, which, as it turned out, acted as both the base and Michael's donor (Table 1

Structure and thermal stability of phosphorus-iodonium ylids

• Andrew Greener,
• Stephen P. Argent,
• Coby J. Clarke and
• Miriam L. O’Duill

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2931–2939, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.245

• synthetic organic chemistry, becoming indispensable tools in total synthesis, late-stage functionalisation and radiolabelling [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Due to their great mechanistic flexibility, including reactivity as oxidants, electrophiles, radical precursors and transmetalating agents, they often

Recent advances in transition-metal-free arylation reactions involving hypervalent iodine salts

• Ritu Mamgain,
• Kokila Sakthivel and
• Fateh V. Singh

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2891–2920, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.243

• , diaryliodonium salts (DAIS), a versatile category of hypervalent iodine compounds, have seen significant progress in hypervalent iodine chemistry. Their efficiency and environmentally friendly characteristics have positioned DAIS as next-generation arylation reagents [29][30]. Other than aromatic electrophiles

Synthesis of tricarbonylated propargylamine and conversion to 2,5-disubstituted oxazole-4-carboxylates

• Kento Iwai,
• Akari Hikasa,
• Kotaro Yoshioka,
• Shinki Tani,
• Kazuto Umezu and
• Nagatoshi Nishiwaki

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2827–2833, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.238

• ] because of their easily modifiable dipeptide frameworks. Several methods exist for accessing PCPAs, such as the amination of 1-halo-1-alkynes [16][17], tandem reactions of α-imino esters with nucleophiles and electrophiles [18], and the nucleophilic addition of an acetylide to α-carbonylated N-acylimines

A review of recent advances in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical late-stage functionalization classified by anodic oxidation, cathodic reduction, and paired electrolysis

• Nian Li,
• Ruzal Sitdikov,
• Ajit Prabhakar Kale,
• Joost Steverlynck,
• Bo Li and
• Magnus Rueping

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2500–2566, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.214

Asymmetric organocatalytic synthesis of chiral homoallylic amines

• Nikolay S. Kondratyev and
• Andrei V. Malkov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2349–2377, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.201

• boroxine with dramatically increased reactivity towards C=N electrophiles. Because of the small steric size of the (BO2) group, the reaction is highly selective towards (E)-α-trifluoromethyl homoallylic amine 44, which otherwise is difficult to obtain in a regiospecific manner. It has to be noted though

• release catalyst 78 completing the catalytic cycle (Scheme 17). In a mechanistic probe, the proposed reaction intermediates were used as starting electrophiles under the standard reaction conditions (Scheme 18). In all three cases, identical outcomes were achieved, supporting the proposed catalytic cycle

• /πAr–Ar catalyst [39]. Reactivity of model electrophiles [39]. HBD/πAr–Ar catalyst rational design and optimisation [39]. Scope of the three-component HBD/πAr–Ar-catalysed reaction [39]. Limitations of the HBD/πAr–Ar-catalysed reaction [39]. Asymmetric chloride-directed dearomative allylation of in

Catalysing (organo-)catalysis: Trends in the application of machine learning to enantioselective organocatalysis

• Stefan P. Schmid,
• Leon Schlosser,
• Frank Glorius and
• Kjell Jorner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2280–2304, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.196

• CPA chemical space. Notably, this data-driven technique is not restricted to the reaction chosen by the authors. The UTS, combined with 19 ‘test set’ catalysts, 5 nucleophiles and 5 electrophiles, constitutes a dataset of 1,075 reactions with associated enantioselectivity values (Figure 8). The size

• [107] (Figure 11B). Werth and Sigman [127] investigated multiple nucleophilic additions to nitroalkenes, catalysed by bifunctional hydrogen bond donors, observing good correlations to new bi-functional donors, new nucleophiles, new electrophiles and even similar cascade-type reactions. In the authors

Efficacy of radical reactions of isocyanides with heteroatom radicals in organic synthesis

• Akiya Ogawa and
• Yuki Yamamoto

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2114–2128, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.182

• is a promising synthetic reagent not only as a one-carbon homologation reagent but also as a nitrogen source for nitrogen-containing molecules. Because of their isoelectronic structure with carbon monoxide, isocyanides also react with nucleophiles, electrophiles, carbon radicals, and transition metal

Multicomponent syntheses of pyrazoles via (3 + 2)-cyclocondensation and (3 + 2)-cycloaddition key steps

• Ignaz Betcke,
• Alissa C. Götzinger,
• Maryna M. Kornet and
• Thomas J. J. Müller

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2024–2077, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.178

• . An advantage of this method for preparing 1,3,5-substituted pyrazoles is its tolerance towards a wide range of substituents. Trimethyl phosphite can be added to acetylene dicarboxylates 95 to generate a zwitterion that readily reacts with electrophiles. This zwitterion undergoes a rearrangement

• with electrophiles, such as deuteration or electrophilic chlorination using N-chlorosuccinimide, in this consecutive three-component synthesis to give persubstituted pyrazoles 165 (Scheme 55) [162]. (3 + 2)-Cycloaddition – C2 building blocks as substrates 1,3-Dipolar cycloadditions are important

Harnessing the versatility of hydrazones through electrosynthetic oxidative transformations

• Aurélie Claraz

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1988–2004, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.175

• asymmetric preparation of chiral amines through the addition of nucleophilic partners [21][22] while the azaenamine character of some aldehyde-derived hydrazones has been demonstrated in the coupling with suitable electrophiles such as Michael acceptors [23][24]. Last but not least, the C=N bond of

Radical reactivity of antiaromatic Ni(II) norcorroles with azo radical initiators

• Siham Asyiqin Shafie,
• Ryo Nozawa,
• Hideaki Takano and
• Hiroshi Shinokubo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1967–1972, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.172

• LUMO (Figure 1) [11]. Reactions with nucleophiles (Nu) proceed with perfect regioselectivity at the distal β-position relative to the meso-position [12][13][14][15]. On the other hand, reactions with electrophiles (El) also occur preferentially at the β-positions, but the regioselectivity depends on

Towards an asymmetric β-selective addition of azlactones to allenoates

• Behzad Nasiri,
• Ghaffar Pasdar,
• Paul Zebrowski,
• Katharina Röser,
• David Naderer and
• Mario Waser

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1504–1509, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.134

• -functionalizations by reacting them with suited C- or heteroatom electrophiles. α-Amino acid-derived azlactones 1 are amongst the most commonly utilized starting materials to access more diverse chiral α,α-disubstituted amino acids (Scheme 1A) [20][21][22]. More specifically, these compounds can be engaged in a

Rapid construction of tricyclic tetrahydrocyclopenta[4,5]pyrrolo[2,3-b]pyridine via isocyanide-based multicomponent reaction

• Xiu-Yu Chen,
• Ying Han,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1436–1443, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.126

• generated by addition reaction of isocyanides to electron-deficient alkynes, which were sequentially trapped by various electrophiles and nucleophiles to give versatile acyclic and heterocyclic compounds [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. In recent years, many multicomponent reactions based

Computation-guided scaffold exploration of 2E,6E-1,10-trans/cis-eunicellanes

• Zining Li,
• Sana Jindani,
• Volga Kojasoy,
• Teresa Ortega,
• Erin M. Marshall,
• Khalil A. Abboud,
• Sandra Loesgen,
• Dean J. Tantillo and
• Jeffrey D. Rudolf

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1320–1326, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.115

• from liverwort [25], possess a similar 6/6/6-skeleton and likely originate from a cis-eunicellane skeleton. We first independently tested 2 with halogen electrophiles NCS and NBS (1.2 equivalents). NCS and NBS provided the C6-monohalogenated 6/6/6-tricyclic products 14 and 15 in 78% and 74% yields