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Organic chemistry

A radical step forward

Nature Chemistry volume 9, pages 198–199 (2017)Cite this article

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Free radicals are notorious for unselective coupling reactions; however, the coupling of free radicals generated from acyl tellurides has now been shown to form C–C bonds with remarkable fidelity, which enables easy one-step assembly of densely oxygenated natural product motifs.

The development of coupling reactions that form C–C and C–X bonds from modular starting materials has streamlined modern organic synthesis from the perspective of both route planning and execution. Although transition metal chemistry has been impactful in the formation of C(sp2)–C(sp2) and C(sp3)–C(sp3) bonds1, these methods struggle to form the latter. Free-radical coupling, however, is highly desirable as a complement in this regard.

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Figure 1: The coupling of free radicals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wenhao Zhang and Ang Li are at the State Key Laboratory of Bioorganic and Natural Products Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 345 Lingling Road, Shanghai 200032, China,

    Wenhao Zhang & Ang Li

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  1. Wenhao Zhang
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  2. Ang Li
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Correspondence to Ang Li.

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Zhang, W., Li, A. A radical step forward. Nature Chem 9, 198–199 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2734

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