Organic Chemistry Frontiers Highlight

A Non-Diazo Strategy to Cyclopropanation via Oxidatively Generated Gold Carbene: the Benefit of A Conformationally Rigid P,N-Bidentate Ligand.

Nickel-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Arylation of Azoles with Perfluoro- and Nitrobenzoates.

This manuscript describes a Ni-catalyzed method for the direct arylation of azoles using benzoates. Perfluorophenyl and 2-nitrobenzoates participate in these reactions to afford the corresponding products in modest to good yields. The efficiency of the arylations with perfluorobenzoates is highly dependent on both the degree and position of fluorine atoms in the benzoates.

Synthetic Strategies Toward the Decalin Motif of Maklamicin and Related Spirotetronates.

Herein we describe a scalable approach to the decalin moiety of maklamicin. Key to the synthesis is an intramolecular Diels-Alder (IMDA) reaction that proceeds via an endo-axial transition state to generate the desired stereochemistry. We explored the diastereoselectivity of the IMDA reaction as a function of both chiral catalysis and acyclic precursor stereochemistry.

Fusarisetins: Structure-function studies on a novel class of cell migration inhibitors.

Herein, we report the effects of fusarisetin A on cell morphology focusing in particular on actin and microtubules dynamics. We also report the synthesis and structure-function studies of a designed library of synthetic fusarisetins in cell-based assays.

The frontiers of organic chemistry at the Bürgenstock conference.