Site-specific labelling of native peptides and proteins: chemical and enzymatic strategies

• Antonio Angelastro,
• Jonathan Bargh,
• Subhajit Guria,
• Victor Laserna and
• Louis Luk

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 857–881, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.67

• mass intensity (PMI). Reagents should be near-stoichiometric, purification steps minimal, and catalysts effective in substoichiometric quantities. Compatibility with one-pot system and automation, such as flow chemistry and robotic synthesis, further enhance scalability. Existing tools and techniques

• substrate profiling. Affinity-guided labelling. a) Reagents and catalysts appended to the binder include electrophilic motifs 14–17 as well as b) benzophenone 18, c) rhodium complexes 19, d) 4-dimethylaminopyridine 20 (DMAP), and e) pyridinium aldoxime 21 (PyOx). Chemical sequence to convert subtilisin

The trans-influence in gold chemistry from a catalytic perspective

• Manfred Bochmann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 838–856, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.66

• recent mechanistic insights. Keywords: catalysis; gold; ligands; reaction mechanism; trans-influence; Introduction Gold catalysts have emerged as catalysts of choice in a multitude of organic transformations, not least due to their high functional group tolerance. Their applications have been widely

• platinum in heterogeneous water–gas shift catalysts and is able to work at lower temperatures [57][58]. The water-gas shift could be mimicked by the reaction of (C^N^C)AuOH with CO, which gives CO2 together with the gold hydride (C^N^C)AuH. However, closing the cycle by reacting the hydride with water

• bonds [20][84]. Catalytic acetylene functionalisation [86][87]. Examples of alkene insertions into Au–C bonds [88][89]. Examples of β-H elimination and chain walking processes in (C^P)-ligated gold alkyls [90]. Mechanism of alkyne hydroarylation with (C^P) gold catalysts [92]. Vinylic triflate esters by

Knoevenagel condensation of 4,5- and 1,8-diazafluorenes

• Darya S. Cheshkina,
• Christina S. Becker,
• Alina A. Sonina and
• Maxim S. Kazantsev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 803–812, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.62

• be applied as antitumor agents [1][2][3], emitters and sensors [4][5]. They have also been extensively used as ligands yielding a wide library of transition-metal complexes [6][7][8], catalysts [9][10], light-driven molecular motors [11][12], nonlinear optical chromophores [13], and electrochromic

Synthesis of heterocycles based on azomethine ylides from α-amino acids (or amines) and carbonyl compounds

• Ekaterina V. Berezhnaya,
• Alexander I. Ponyaev,
• Vitali M. Boitsov and
• Alexander V. Stepakov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 705–741, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.55

• from imino esters, catalyzed by chiral Cu(I,II) and Ag(I) complexes, are widely used. Reactions using α-amino acids proceed, in most cases, without the use of catalysts, with high yields and high stereoselectivity. Electrophilic alkenes of various structures, (hetero)aromatic olefins and benzofulvenes

Photoorganocatalytic trifluoromethylation of (het)arenes in green conditions

• Egor N. Boronin,
• Svetlana E. Kaurkina,
• Milena M. Svetlakova,
• Anton S. Bolshakov,
• Maxim V. Arsenyev,
• Vasilii F. Otvagin,
• Alexey Yu. Fedorov,
• Timothy Noël and
• Alexander V. Nyuchev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 662–671, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.50

• trifluoromethyl-substituted compounds. Over the past decade, numerous photocatalytic protocols for the trifluoromethylation of arenes and heteroarenes have been developed, including approaches employing microflow techniques [6]. These transformations utilize a broad spectrum of catalysts, ranging from Ru- and Ir

• -based complexes to other transition metals and organic photocatalysts, as well as diverse CF3 sources. The major limitations of these methodologies include the high cost of catalysts and trifluoromethylating reagents, along with the use of toxic species such as transition-metal complexes and hazardous

• for the photochemical trifluoromethylation of (hetero)arenes using an Ir-based photocatalyst under blue-light irradiation (Scheme 1c) [16]. Although these approaches employed inexpensive CF3 sources, they relied on costly noble-metal catalysts with loadings of up to 3 mol %. Moreover, all of these

Hydrogen production from formic acid catalyzed by NHC–Cu complexes

• Orlando Santoro and
• Catherine S. J. Cazin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 620–627, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.48

• ]. Finally, a Cu(I)–formato complex able to promote FA dehydrogenation in the absence of any additive was very recently reported by Berthet, Cantat and co-workers [48]. During the past decades, NHC–Cu complexes have shown to be efficient catalysts in a plethora of reactions. Indeed, they guarantee better

• that the reaction mixture is composed of more than one species presenting different ammonium/formato ratios [63]. Compared to other Cu-based catalysts employed in FA dehydrogenation, the complex 5/aniline system exhibited higher activity (TOF 14 h−1) than monomeric formate species bearing bulky

• phenanthroline ligands (TOF 4 h−1) [48] as well as Cu(0), Cu(I), and Cu(II) precursors/NEt3 (TOFs < 1 h−1) [44]. In contrast, [Cu(NCMe)4][PF6]/phosphine ligands/(t-BuNC–NEt3) systems represent the most active Cu-based catalysts reported to date for this transformation, exhibiting TOFs spanning from 10 to 240 h−1

Computational prediction of C–H hydricities and their use in predicting the regioselectivity of electron-rich C–H functionalisation reactions

• Rasmus M. Borup,
• Nicolai Ree and
• Jan H. Jensen

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 603–610, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.46

• tertiary > secondary > primary reactivity pattern; it is thus not clear whether hydricities offer an advantage over BDEs. Furthermore, for reactions involving bulky catalysts and/or functional groups the regioselectivity will also be dictated by the steric accessibility of the C–H site (Figure 1). In this

Continuous-flow carbonyl hydrogenation under subatmospheric to atmospheric hydrogen pressure enabled by robust heterogeneous Pt–Fe catalysts

• Hiroyuki Miyamura,
• Ryosuke Kajiyama,
• Shun-ya Onozawa,
• Yoshihiro Kon and
• Shū Kobayashi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 575–582, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.43

• bimetallic Pt–Fe nanoparticle catalyst immobilized on a composite support of dimethylpolysilane and alumina. Both ketones and aldehydes, including highly bulky and sterically hindered substrates, were smoothly hydrogenated using the newly developed catalysts under continuous-flow conditions at room

• temperature and under subatmospheric to atmospheric hydrogen pressure. High durability of the heterogeneous catalysts was confirmed by a long-term continuous-flow operation. Interestingly, both the combination of metal species and the metal ratio strongly influenced the catalytic performance. Keywords

• heterogeneous catalysts are used in a continuous-flow system, the catalyst included in a column allows semi-permanent use without recovery and reuse operations that are usually needed in a batch system. The integration of multiple column reactors also enables multistep continuous production. In addition, an

Kinetic resolution of racemic planar-chiral vinylcymantrenes by molybdenum-catalyzed asymmetric metathesis dimerization

• Haruna Imazu,
• Hitoshi Izu,
• Yasuhiro Ohki and
• Masamichi Ogasawara

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 568–574, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.42

• resolution; molybdenum; olefin metathesis; planar chirality; Introduction The development of the well-defined molybdenum- [1][2] or ruthenium-alkylidene [3][4][5] catalysts has proven the olefin metathesis reaction to be a powerful tool in organic synthesis. Asymmetric extension is a recent trend in

• metathesis chemistry, and various chiral metal-alkylidene catalysts have been prepared over the past two decades [6][7][8][9]. Since 2002, our group and others have been interested in utilizing the olefin metathesis reaction for the modulation of various transition-metal complexes [10][11][12][13] thanks to

• the excellent tolerance of the Mo-/Ru-metathesis catalysts toward the organometallic substrates. The olefin metathesis protocols could be extended to the asymmetric synthesis of diverse planar-chiral transition metal complexes either by the kinetic resolution of the racemic substrates [14][15][16] or

Modern synthetic pathways towards eribulin and its subunits

• Sebastian Dominik Graf

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 495–526, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.37

• . Eventual change of the two PNB- with TBDMS-protecting groups yielded 45 in 58%. Notably, by this technique, the central pyran motif was assembled in one step and required only the stereoinformation of 42`s alcohol unit, while in former works two individual steps and the use of expensive metal catalysts

• competitive reaction sequence for the large-scale process currently applied by Eisai [66]. Furthermore, this method stands out for its cost-efficiency, since only an enantiomeric pair of ruthenium catalysts is needed in addition to other standard chemicals. A similar building block as from Kaghad and co

• field of the synthesis of 1. This is especially observable for the synthesis of the 4 heterocyclic key fragments or intermediates obtained during the Eisai process. Here, the major progresses can be registered in terms of enhancing the sustainability of pathways through the removal of metal catalysts

Recent advances in the stereoselective synthesis of distal biaxially chiral molecules

• Fanxing Zhou,
• Chen Zhang,
• Lingyu Sun,
• Yiyun Fang,
• Siming Zheng,
• Lina Hu,
• Mengyang Shen,
• Zhen Zhao,
• Wei Xu,
• Yunqiang Sun and
• Zi-Qiang Rong

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 461–479, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.34

• studies have further broadened the synthetic toolbox for remote biaxial chirality. Du and co-workers designed a series of chiral phosphoric acid catalysts derived from protected axially chiral diols 13, employing a boronic acid-mediated coupling strategy to construct remote biaxially chiral phosphoric

• ligands (Scheme 3) [44]. The resulting catalysts 18 demonstrated remarkable efficiency in the asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of quinoline derivatives. Along similar lines, Zhang and co-workers introduced an additional axial chirality element into a ligand framework, affording a pair of diastereomeric

• utility of machine learning in predicting the synthetic feasibility of ligands. By integrating a wide range of Pd catalysis data with limited Ni/Sadphos data through a co-modeling approach, this work pioneered a few-shot learning strategy for the design of molecular catalysts. Transformation from central

A facile and practical method for the synthesis of trans-(±)-taxifolin and its derivatives via Darzens reaction

• Bo Peng,
• Panpan Yang,
• Maaz Khan,
• Xiaotong Lin,
• Jiang Wu,
• Peng Fu and
• Qingqing Wu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 443–450, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.31

• readily available. Additionally, Xiang et al. [17] and Jew et al. [18] reported asymmetric syntheses of taxifolin, which suffer from long-step operation and the use of complicated and expensive metal-ligand catalysts. Currently, the most widely used chemical method is the synthesis of trans-(±)-taxifolin

Recent advances in the cleavage of non-activated amides

• Eun-Sol Choi and
• Hyo-Jun Lee

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 352–369, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.23

• remains a significant and persistent challenge in synthetic chemistry [41][42][43][44]. Classical approaches for activating non-activated amides typically rely on transition-metal catalysts acting as Lewis acids, which coordinate to the carbonyl oxygen and enhance electrophilicity (Scheme 1d). However

• can also serve as efficient catalysts for activating amide C–N bonds. SanMartin et al. investigated a palladium-catalyzed transamidation of non-activated amides 5, 27–29 with benzylamines, in which molecular oxygen acted as the palladium-activating agent (Scheme 6) [50]. Notably, high yields of the

Synthesis of tricyclic fused pyrrolidine nitroxides from 2-alkynylpyrrolidine-1-oxyls

• Mark M. Gulman,
• Yuliya F. Polienko,
• Sofia Yu. Trakhininа,
• Yuri V. Gatilov,
• Tatyana V. Rybalova,
• Sergey A. Dobrynin and
• Igor A. Kirilyuk

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 344–351, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.22

• components of many high-tech materials, such as energy storage and organoelectronics devices [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], catalysts [9][10], bioactive coatings and nanoparticles [11][12], organic radical contrast agents (ORCAs) for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [13][14], etc. For these applications, numerous

A mild and atom-efficient four-component cascade strategy for the construction of biologically relevant 4-hydroxyquinolin-2(1H)-one derivatives

• Dmitrii A. Grishin,
• Kseniia I. Sharkovskaia,
• Ilya G. Kolmakov,
• Daria A. Ipatova,
• Rostislav A. Petrov,
• Nikolai D. Dagaev,
• Dmitry A. Skvortsov,
• Maria G. Khrenova,
• Valeriy V. Andreychev,
• Sergei A. Evteev,
• Yan A. Ivanenkov,
• Roman L. Antipin,
• Olga А. Dontsova and
• Elena K. Beloglazkina

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 244–256, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.18

• with α,β-unsaturated esters, such as (E)-3-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)acrylic acid esters 3 (see Supporting Information File 1) exemplified by compound 4. Different solvents and catalysts, both acidic and basic, were screened at room temperature, including refluxing in pyridine with piperidine, but the

Synthesis of diaryl phosphates using phytic acid as a phosphorus source

• Kazuya Asao,
• Seika Matsumoto,
• Haruka Mori,
• Riku Yoshimura,
• Takeshi Sasaki,
• Naoya Hirata,
• Yasuyuki Hayakawa and
• Shin-ichi Kawaguchi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 213–223, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.15

• utilization in metal-chelating agents, flame retardants, and catalysts [3][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, these applications involved the use of either phytic acid itself or its derivatives. Our group has previously reported a method for synthesizing diaryl phosphates using phosphoric acid as the

• [22] and as insecticides [23]. Particularly, phosphate diesters are among the most important synthetic catalysts, such as the Akiyama–Terada catalyst that serves as a chiral Brønsted acid catalyst [24][25] and promotes a variety of stereoselective reactions. Phosphate diesters also catalyze the ring

Screwing the helical chirality through terminal peri-functionalization

• Devesh Chandra,
• Sachin and
• Upendra Sharma

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 205–212, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.14

• catalysts [33]. A domino reaction was developed, beginning with a PPS L2-catalyzed Michael addition of phosphine oxides 7 to nitro-substituted oxa[5]helicenes 6, followed by a copper-promoted aromatization. This sequence efficiently produced phosphorus-containing oxa[5]helicene derivatives 8 in high yields

• nanoscale phenomenon that requires the design of advanced catalysts to achieve high enantioselectivity. Although the parallel approach is still in its infancy, it holds immense promise. With the continued and widespread efforts of synthetic chemists, we anticipate that the existing challenges will be

Circumventing Mukaiyama oxidation: selective S–O bond formation via sulfenamide–alcohol coupling

• Guoling Huang,
• Huarui Zhu,
• Shuting Zhou,
• Wanlin Zheng,
• Fangpeng Liang,
• Zhibo Zhao,
• Yifei Chen and
• Xunbo Lu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 158–166, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.9

• , such transformations remain synthetically challenging. This is primarily due to the well-known Mukaiyama-type oxidation, wherein sulfenamides serve as redox catalysts for NBS- or NCS-mediated oxidations of alcohols to aldehydes or ketones (Scheme 1b, top) [38][39][40][41][42]. Under such oxidative

Asymmetric Mannich reaction of aromatic imines with malonates in the presence of multifunctional catalysts

• Kadri Kriis,
• Harry Martõnov,
• Annette Miller,
• Mia Peterson,
• Ivar Järving and
• Tõnis Kanger

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 151–157, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.8

• synthesized and screened in asymmetric Mannich reaction. The reaction of aromatic imines with malonates in the presence of amino acid-derived catalysts gave Mannich adducts in very high enantiomeric purities (up to 98% ee). It is proposed that a network of hydrogen and halogen bonds with Lewis bases, together

• led to the use of multifunctional catalysts of “homocooperativity,” where multiple units of the same catalyst perform different but complementary roles [17]. These catalysts employing noncovalent interactions via hydrogen bonds and also possess Lewis basic and π–π-interaction sites have been highly

• reactions to imines [27]. The model reaction was performed in the presence of various types of catalysts (Figure 1). The syntheses of the catalysts are described in Supporting Information File 1. All catalysts used are amides containing tertiary amino groups, which are needed for the activation of the

Total synthesis of natural products based on hydrogenation of aromatic rings

• Haoxiang Wu and
• Xiangbing Qi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 88–122, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.4

• limitation requires the design of catalysts that achieve precise electronic complementarity, enabling selective activation across a broad spectrum of aromatic compounds (Scheme 2) [32]. From the standpoint of scalable synthesis, catalyst cost is a major bottleneck in aromatic hydrogenation. Most state-of-the

• -art systems depend on expensive transition metals such as platinum, ruthenium, or palladium, inflating the cost of large-scale applications. In addition, precious-metal catalysts often display poor selectivity, while heteroatoms in heteroarenes – acting as Lewis bases – tend to coordinate to the metal

• heterocycles exhibit strong Lewis basicity, potentially complexing and deactivating catalysts. Consequently, the catalytic hydrogenation of six-membered aromatic heterocycles such as pyridine often requires the introduction of substituents or activation of the aromatic heterocycle to facilitate hydrogenation

Advances in Zr-mediated radical transformations and applications to total synthesis

• Hiroshige Ogawa and
• Hugh Nakamura

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 71–87, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.3

• and accelerating the whole process. Zr-mediated catalytic radical reactions In recent years, numerous chemical transformations employing photoredox catalysts in combination with catalytic amounts of zirconium complexes have been reported. In this section, representative examples of such reactions are

• for further development in this area. In 2022, Ota and Yamaguchi et al. reported the zirconocene-catalyzed ring-opening of epoxides using Cp₂Zr(OTf)2·THF (Scheme 5) [4]. Traditionally, such transformations are carried out with low-valent titanium catalysts, which typically proceed via more substituted

• zirconocene catalysts using substrates 23l–n. In both cases, the regioselectivity was found to be reversed. With titanocene, the reaction proceeds through the more stable, substituted radical, whereas with zirconocene, the high oxygen affinity of zirconium is the key factor driving the opposite

Synthesis and applications of alkenyl chlorides (vinyl chlorides): a review

• Daniel S. Müller

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 1–63, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.1

• stereocontrolled olefin metathesis with molybdenum catalysts to access trisubstituted alkenes including alkenyl chlorides (Figure 3H) [39]. Two recent reviews by Lu [40] and Nishiwaki [41] provide overviews of current developments in the hydrochlorination of alkynes, highlighting emerging catalytic strategies

• rapidly decomposes into catalytically inactive species 288 and 289 (Scheme 55). Consequently, metathesis with trans-chloroethylene presents a significant challenge. Grela was the first to demonstrate that metathesis is indeed feasible using phosphine-free catalysts [189]. The formation of the desired

• also be applied to hydroxy- or carboxylic acid-containing olefins by adding 1.1 equivalents of HB(pin) to perform traceless protection of these functional groups, which are otherwise incompatible with molybdenum metathesis catalysts. The in situ-generated boronic ester is conveniently cleaved by silica

Mechanistic insights into hydroxy(tosyloxy)iodobenzene-mediated ditosyloxylation of chalcones: a DFT study

• Jai Parkash,
• Sangeeta Saini,
• Vaishali Saini,
• Omkar Bains and
• Raj Kamal

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2703–2715, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.208

• -substituents; α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds; Introduction Hypervalent iodine compounds exhibit a range of bonding patterns which making these compounds powerful reagents or catalysts for a number of organic transformations [1][2][3][4] – oxidation of alcohols [5], epoxidation of alkenes [6], oxidative

Thiazolidinones: novel insights from microwave synthesis, computational studies, and potentially bioactive hybrids

• Luan A. Martinho,
• Victor H. J. G. Praciano,
• Guilherme D. R. Matos,
• Claudia C. Gatto and
• Carlos Kleber Z. Andrade

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2618–2636, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.203

• condensation-type reaction between aromatic aldehydes with rhodanine or thiazolidine-2,4-dione [39]. Various protocols have been reported employing diverse catalyst systems and reaction conditions. Common catalysts include inorganic bases such as sodium acetate (NaOAc) [40], urea/thiourea [41], NaOH [42

• ], diammonium phosphate (DAP) [43], and tetrabutylammonium bromide (TBAB) [44]. Organic bases like morpholine [45], triethylamine [46], ethanolamine, and piperidine [47] and heterogeneous catalysts from Cu [48], Ti [49], and Zn [50] metal compounds have also been used. Common solvents are ethanol [51], toluene

Visible-light-driven NHC and organophotoredox dual catalysis for the synthesis of carbonyl compounds

• Vasudevan Dhayalan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2584–2603, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.200

• , Michael additions, cycloadditions, domino reactions, cascade annulations, Diels–Alder reactions, and Michael–Stetter reactions, to name a few [31][32][33][34][35]. Notably, previous reports have demonstrated that the utility of chiral N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) catalysts permits contracting asymmetric C

• –C, C–HA bond-forming reactions [36][37]. These chiral NHC catalysts, used to access enantiopure alcohol/amine derivatives, particularly 2° and 3° alcohols/amines, are significant structural motifs in numerous drugs and natural products and have found widespread synthetic applications in medicinal

• continued integration of this versatile photocatalytic platform with sustainable methods such as visible-light harvesting and the use of earth-abundant catalysts is expected to further enhance its impact across diverse research fields, including chemical biology, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, polymers