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Cycloadditions of nitrones with alkynes usually occur best under heat activation. Due to the instability of the formed isoxazolines, alternative activation methods must be found. Here, hyperbaric conditions are used to transform nitrones generated from unprotected carbohydrates into the corresponding polyhydroxy-isoxazolines at room temperature. The reaction proved completely regioselective in favor of the 5-substituted 4-isoxazolines, and the products are obtained in good yields as mixtures of the two possible diastereoisomers. Further transformations into biologically valuable targets are described. The whole synthesis constitutes a very straightforward procedure for the transformation of aldoses, and is highly compatible with the principles of green chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IspG (also called GcpE) is an oxygen-sensitive [4Fe-4S] enzyme catalyzing the penultimate step of the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway, a validated target for drug development. It converts 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol-2,4-cyclo-diphosphate (MEcPP) into (E)-4-hydroxy-3-methyl-but-2-enyl-1-diphosphate (HMBPP). The reaction, assimilated to a reductive dehydration, involves redox partners responsible for the formal transfer of two electrons to substrate MEcPP. The 2-vinyl analogue of MEcPP was designed to generate conjugated species during enzyme catalysis, with the aim of providing new reactive centers to be covalently trapped by neighboring amino acid residues. The synthesized substrate analogue displayed irreversible inhibition towards IspG. Furthermore, we have shown that electron transfer occurs prior to inhibition; this might designate conjugated intermediates as probable affinity tags through covalent interaction at the catalytic site. This is the first report of an irreversible inhibitor of the IspG metalloenzyme., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

The development of new fluorine-containing building blocks and their efficient synthetic access is currently a challenging research field. Herein, the highly regio- and stereoselective addition of a large range of aldehydes onto trifluoromethylated benzofulvenes was achieved using a simple La/I 2 /DIBAL-Cl system via a selective C-F bond activation process. This versatile methodology provided homodienyl alcohols bearing a terminal CF 2 -alkene with potential further applications, as shown by the dehydration to the first benzofulvenes carrying a difluorovinyl group. In addition, for certain electron-poor aldehydes, unprecedented ipso substitution of the CF 3 group in a diene was observed, which, according to DFT studies, is related to the presence of the large, Lewis-acidic lanthanum metal., (© 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Heavy metal on Lewis acid: The combination of lanthanide metals and AlCl 3 has been employed for selective single C-F activation in benzofulvenes comprising an exocyclic CF 3 substituent. Intermediate ϵ,ϵ-difluorinated metal-dienyl species react with a large variety of aldehydes in a highly regio- and diastereoselective fashion to afford 1,1-disubstituted indenes bearing a difluorovinyl group. These new building blocks have been further transformed through a hydrogenation-cyclization process into fluorinated heterocyclic spiro compounds., (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

An efficient (+)-camphor-mediated kinetic resolution of racemic cyclohex-2-en-1-ylalane is described. This approach provides an enantiomerically enriched form of the alane, in situ available for synthetic uses. Applied to the allylation of aldehydes, this protocol leads to the corresponding homoallylalcohols in a highly enantioselective manner.