Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 7, Issue 18, 2003

Isoquinoline alkaloids are a small group of natural products with widespread occurrence in nature and also playing a very important role in the secondary metabolism of numerous vegetal families. In this context, during the last years the stereoselective synthesis of differently substituted tetrahydroisoquinolines has been a field of increasing interest in synthetic organic chemistry in which many research groups have focus Read More

The literature survey about the title subject since 1985 is presented. The new heterocycles are classified by the tetracyanoethylene (TCNE) reaction type. Accordingly, four classes of TCNE-derivative heterocycles can be identified: (i) reaction products obtained by nucleophilic attack on tetracyanocyclopropanes, which in turn are formed from the reaction of TCNE with aliphatic monobromoderivatives; (ii) products resulti Read More

There are diverse classes of compounds in the arsenal of synthetic organic chemists, which are of immense use in the synthesis of natural products. The class of α-diazocarbonyls is one of them. The compounds of this class are often used for the generation of reactive intermediates such as carbenoids and ketenes. The reactions of these intermediates have been used in the synthesis of a wide variety of organic com Read More

To perform its biochemical functions, a protein usually folds into a well defined, highly ordered structure. Subtle changes in conformation are frequently used in nature to modulate or regulate protein's functions. It is, thus, critical to identify these changes in order to fully comprehend how proteins perform their biological functions. A variety of spectrometry techniques, including X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic reso Read More

Major aspects of the synthetic utility of 1,3-diketones are reviewed with special emphasis being placed on the regioselectivity of the transformations. The unsymmetrical 1,3-diketone moiety may contain up to five nucleophilic and two electrophilic centers that may only slightly differ in reactivity; therefore, it seems almost impossible to carry out chemical transformations with substrate selectively at only one spe Read More