Catalytic nucleophilic 'umpoled' π-allyl reagents.

After seminal Tsuji-Trost reactions (palladium catalyzed allylation of nucleophiles via π-allyl intermediates as electrophiles), the idea of reversal reactivity of π-allyl intermediates (i.e. π-allyl as nucleophiles) has been stated since the eighties.

Regioselective ester cleavage during the preparation of bisphosphonate methacrylate monomers.

New functional monomers bearing a methacrylate, a bisphosphonate function and, for most, an internal carboxylate group, were prepared for incorporation into copolymers with adhesive or anticorrosive properties. Methanolysis of some trimethylsilyl bisphosphonate esters not only deprotects the desired bisphosphonate function but also regioselectively cleaves the alkyl ester function without affecting the methacrylate ester.

Graph-mining algorithm for the evaluation of bond formability.

The formability of a bond in a target molecule is a bond property related to the problem of finding a reaction that synthesizes the target by forming the bond: the easier this problem, the higher the formability. Bond formability provides an interesting piece of information that might be used for selecting strategic bonds during a retrosynthesic analysis or for assessing synthetic accessibility in virtual screening. The article describes a graph-mining algorithm called GemsBond that evaluates formability of bonds by mining structural environments contained in several thousand molecular graphs of reaction products.

Stereocontrolled routes to beta,beta'-disubstituted alpha-amino acids.

Owing to their significant abundance in natural products, chiral beta,beta'-disubstituted alpha-amino acids remain an important synthetic objective. Emphasis has been focused in this critical review on the great diversity of enantio- and diastereoselective methodologies to reach these highly functionalized compounds. The oldest and cutting edge synthetic methods are described in parallel with the synthesis of many relevant biologically active targets (224 references).

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) prevents inflammatory stress in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures.

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) is an antioxidant component of propolis, a natural product secreted by honeybee. Recent literature shows that CAPE inhibits nuclear factor kappa B (NFkappaB) activation in cell lines. Since NFkappaB was shown to be a crucial factor in neuroinflammation and to be associated with some neuropathologies, CAPE might reduce these disorders in brain too and have therapeutic applications.

Total Synthesis of Dolatrienoic Acid: A Subunit of Dolastatin 14.

The (7R,15R)- and (7S,15R)-diastereomers of dolatrienoic acid were synthesized using a convergent strategy. Fragment C5-C9 was obtained through enantiodifferentiation of racemic pentane-1,3,5-triol as the key step, fixing the chirality at C7 of fragments 4 and ent-4. The chirality at C15 of the fragment C10-C16 was introduced from L-glutamic acid.