Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 20, Issue 16, 2016

Employing dichloromethane (DCM) as building block for organic synthesis is beneficial because of its low cost and good solubility to organic reactants. The recent advances in the organic syntheses using DCM as the methylene donor are highlighted.

Lactonamycin is a natural antibiotic that exhibits potent antimicrobial and anticancer activities. It has a unique hexacyclic aglycone core (lactonamycinone) that features with a naphtho[e]isoindole moiety incorporating a densely oxygenated fused perhydrofuran-furanone ring with a labile tertiary methoxy moiety, and a 2-deoxy sugar unit attached by a tertiary -ketoglycosidic bond. The intriguing structure of the lactonamycin and the urgent need for novel effective antibiotics against resistant bacterial infections have stimulated considerable efforts towards the total synthesis of lactonamycin and its analogs. This paper summarizes the recent progresses towards the total synthesis of lactonamycin and its analogs, including the construction of the AB, ABCD, ABCDE, EF, CDEF, BCDEF ring systems, and the aglycone core.

Dimedone (5,5-dimethylcyclohexane-1,3-dione) is an alicyclic diketone, occasionally considered as building blocks in design and synthesis of a wide variety of heterocycles. The synthetic efficacy of dimedone as a synthon has been presented as a chapter in Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry in 2009. Due to importance of dimedone and huge numbers of cited references concerning its applications after 2009 till date, in this review we try to update its unique role as a privileged synthon in the synthesis of different heterocyclic compounds.

To date, since the single review about aza-BODIPYs was not recorded, this critical review focuses on the near-infrared aza-BODIPY dyes. It covers the advances using aza-BODIPY as a fluorophore in the design, synthesis and functionalizations of fluorescent chemosensors for pH, metal ions, anions, biomolecules and so forth since 2002.