Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

David Leigh and co-workers talk about a macrocycle that contains both a hydrazone and a disulfide linkage.
Find out more about the synthesis, the structure and the different chemistry they perform on it in this very interesting paper.

Excellent reviews from the referees and thumbs up from the editorial office make it a HOT paper.

Free to access until the end of September.

Synthesis and solid state structure of a hydrazone-disulfide macrocycle and its dynamic covalent ring-opening under acidic and basic conditions
Max von Delius, Edzard M. Geertsema, David A. Leigh and Alexandra M. Z. Slawin
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00214C, Paper

Namboothiri and colleagues describe Rauhut-Curier (RC) reactions of aliphatic nitroalkenes and nitrodienes with enones and acrylates.

It has received very positive comments from the referees and the Editorial Office. What do you think?

As a HOT article, it will be free to access until September 26th.

Rauhut–Currier type homo- and heterocouplings involving nitroalkenes and nitrodienes
Pramod Shanbhag, Pradeep R. Nareddy, Mamta Dadwal, Shaikh M. Mobin and Irishi N. N. Namboothiri
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00062K , Paper

Knölker and co-workers  describe an efficient total synthesis of the sesquiterpenes (±)-β-isocomene and (±)-isocomene using a Lewis acid-promoted [3 + 2] cycloaddition of allyl-tert-butyldiphenylsilane as the key-step.

This is an OBC HOT article (as rated by the referees and the Editorial Office) and it will be free to access for 4 weeks.

You can download it here and comment on this blog.

Organosilicon-mediated total synthesis of the triquinane sesquiterpenes (±)-β-isocomene and (±)-isocomene
Arndt W. Schmidt, Thomas Olpp, Elke Baum, Tina Stiffel and Hans-Joachim Knölker
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article

Carlos Barbas III and Nobuyuki Mase look at recent developments and applications of aldolase-type organocatalytic direct transformations in aqueous media in this new Perspective article. You will learn more about the role of water in organocatalysis, a field that is rapidly developing.

In water, on water, and by water: mimicking nature’s aldolases with organocatalysis and water
Nobuyuki Mase, Carlos F. Barbas and III, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010
DOI: 10.1039/c004970k

On the same theme, take a look at Thomas Nugent and colleagues’ recent paper on diastereo- and enantioselective aqueous aldol reactions and discover a very promising organocatalyst template for this kind of reaction.

Picolylamine as an organocatalyst template for highly diastereo- and enantioselective aqueous aldol reactions
Thomas C. Nugent, M. Naveed Umar and Ahtaram Bibi, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010
DOI: 10.1039/c0ob00049c