Presents a wide-ranging overview of essential topics and recent advances in MCR chemistry Heterocycles are a central component in natural product chemistry, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and material science. New synthetic methodologies integrating the sequencing of multicomponent reactions (MCRs) are today being used for the rapid synthesis of diversified heterocycles in just one step. Multicomponent Reactions towards Heterocycles presents an up-to-date summary MCR chemistry with a focus on the conjugation between modern synthetic methodologies and MCRs. Featuring contributions by leaders in the field, this comprehensive resource highlights applications of MCRs in natural products and intermediate synthesis, discusses current trends and future prospects in MCR chemistry, outlines novel multicomponent procedures, and more. The authors provide the practical information required for designing new reaction strategies and mechanisms, covering topics including MCR-based green synthetic methods, cyclization and cycloaddition reactions, heterocycle multicomponent syntheses in a continuous flow, catalytic alkynoyl generation, MCR synthesis of saturated heterocycles, and C–H functionalization and multicomponent reactions. Provides a thorough overview of heterocycles as input in multicomponent reactions Discusses recent advances in the field of MCR chemistry and progress in the synthesis and functionalization of heterocycles Demonstrates the use of MCRs to simplify synthetic design and achieve complexity and diversity in novel bioactive molecules Highlights examples of multicomponent polymerizations, target-oriented synthesis, and applications of MCR in medicinal chemistry Explains the methodology of using on-resin MCRs to produce heterocycle compounds Illustrating the key role of MCRs towards heterocycles in natural product synthesis, drug discovery, organic synthesis, and other applications, Multicomponent Reactions towards Heterocycles is required reading for synthetic chemists in academia and industry alike.

This volume describes the recent developments in the free-radical mediated synthesis and elaboration of heterocycles. The first chapter, dealing with radical cascade processes illustrates the power and the beauty of radical chemistry with some striking examples of total synthesis of complex natural heterocycles. As organic chemists strive towards sustainability, radical chemistry has recently seen major advances and efforts in this direction, including C-H activation of arenes and unactivated alkyl groups. Photochemical activation, for a long time the preferred mode of activation in radical chemistry has also seen an unexpected revival with the advent of visible light metal- and organocatalyzed photoredox processes. A survey of these emerging areas is provided along with the concepts at the origin of these developments. The venerable Minisci reaction allows for direct access to functionalized heterocycles. This process has lately seen an interesting renaissance and is discussed in this volume. Addition of heteroatom-centered radicals onto unsaturated systems constitutes another powerful method to construct heterocycles. Examples of such a strategy are proposed along with the formation of various heterocycles relying on homolytic substitution at sulfur, phosphorus and selenium. Additionally free-radical functionalization of reactive functional groups including isonitriles, isothiocyanates and related unsaturated systems which offer a straightforward route towards useful aromatic and non-aromatic heterocycles are discussed. Finally, as metals are able to trigger single electron transfer both in reductive and oxidative modes this provides another possibility for the synthesis of heterocycles. Significant research efforts have focused on the use of samarium, copper and other metals to access a broad variety of heterocycles in a single pot process, starting from readily available raw material. Examples and mechanistic insights are discussed by experts in this area.

Géraldine Masson, Luc Neuville ∙ Carine Bughin ∙ Aude Fayol ∙ Jieping Zhu Multicomponent Syntheses of Macrocycles Thomas J.J. Müller Palladium-Copper Catalyzed Alkyne Activation as an Entry to Multicomponent Syntheses of Heterocycles Rachel Scheffelaar ∙ Eelco Ruijter ∙ Romano V.A. Orru Multicomponent Reaction Design Strategies: Towards Scaffold and Stereochemical Diversity Nicola Kielland ∙ Rodolfo Lavilla Recent Developments in Reissert-Type Multicomponent Reactions Jitender B. Bariwal ∙ Jalpa C. Trivedi ∙ Erik V. Van der Eycken Microwave Irradiation and Multicomponent Reactions Irini Akritopoulou-Zanze ∙ Stevan W. Djuric Applications of MCR-Derived Heterocycles in Drug Discovery

Heterocycles feature widely in natural products, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and dyes, and their synthesis is of great interest to synthetic chemists in both academia and industry. The contributions of recent applications of new methodologies in C–H activation, photoredox chemistry, cross-coupling strategies, borrowing hydrogen catalysis, multicomponent and solvent-free reactions, regio- and stereoselective syntheses, as well as other new, attractive approaches for the construction of heterocyclic scaffolds are of great interest. This Special Issue is dedicated to featuring the latest research that is ongoing in the field of heterocyclic synthesis. It is expected that most submissions will focus on five- and six-membered oxygen and nitrogen-containing heterocycles, but structures incorporating other rings/heteroatoms will also be considered. Original research (communications, full papers and reviews) that discusses innovative methodologies for assembling heterocycles with potential application in materials, catalysis and medicine are therefore welcome.

Currently, one of the major challenges of modern drug discovery is the design of highly efficient chemical reaction sequences providing a maximum of structural diversity using a minimum number of synthetic steps to assemble compounds with interesting properties. Heterocyclic containing O atom, especially fused polyaromatic heterocycles containing O, are of the most important heterocyclic compounds with widespread occurrence in nature. Pharmacologically and biologically activity of furan derivatives have induced and encouraged a number of researcher groups to introduce a wide spectrum of synthetic designs with the aim of obtaining pharmacologically and biologically more active heterocyclic compounds. In the present book, novel strategy for the synthesis of polysubstituted furans which are one of the important structural units as well as broadly found in many natural products and pharmaceutical substances is described. In addition, two new strategies for the multicomponent synthesis of novel acenaphtho 1,2-b]furan derivatives are included. Furthermore, efficient procedures to synthesize chromeno 4,3-b]quinoline and benzo f]chromene derivatives are fully explained in the present book.