Several small molecule species formally known primarily as toxic gases have, over the past 20 years, been shown to be endogenously generated signaling molecules. The biological signaling associated with the small molecules NO, CO, H2S (and the nonendogenously generated O2), and their derived species have become a topic of extreme interest. It has become increasingly clear that these small molecule signaling agents form an integrated signaling web that affects/regulates numerous physiological processes. The chemical interactions between these species and each other or biological targets is an important factor in their roles as signaling agents. Thus, a fundamental understanding of the chemistry of these molecules is essential to understanding their biological/physiological utility. This review focuses on this chemistry and attempts to establish the chemical basis for their signaling functions.

Asymmetric, radical C–H functionalizations are rare, yet powerful tools for solving modern synthetic challenges. Specifically, the enantio- and regio-selective C–H amination of alcohols to access medicinally valuable, chiral β-amino alcohols remains elusive. To solve this challenge, a radical relay chaperone strategy was designed, wherein an alcohol is transiently converted to an imidate radical that undergoes intramolecular H-atom transfer (HAT). This regioselective HAT was also rendered enantioselective by harnessing energy transfer catalysis to mediate selective radical generation and interception by a chiral copper catalyst. The successful development of this multi-catalytic, asymmetric, radical C–H amination enables broad access to chiral β-amino alcohols from a variety of alcohols containing alkyl, allyl, benzyl, and propargyl C–H bonds. Mechanistic experiments reveal triplet energy sensitization of a Cu-bound radical precursor facilitates catalyst-mediated HAT stereoselectivity – enabling the synthesis of several important classes of chiral β-amines by enantioselective, radical C–H amination.

Fosu, Hambira, and colleagues describe the direct C-H functionalization of medicinally relevant arenes or heteroarenes. This strategy is enabled by transient generation of reactive, non-symmetric iodanes from anions and PhI(OAc) 2 . The site-selective incorporation of Cl, Br, OMs, OTs, and OTf to complex molecules, including within medicines and natural products, can be conducted by the operationally simple procedure included herein. A computational model for predicting site selectivity is also included.

A selective, remote desaturation has been developed to rapidly access homoallyl amines from their aliphatic precursors. The strategy employs a triple H-atom transfer (HAT) cascade, entailing (i) cobalt-catalyzed metal-HAT (MHAT), (ii) carbon-to-carbon 1,6-HAT, and (iii) Co–H regeneration via MHAT. A new class of sulfonyl radical chaperone (to rapidly access and direct remote, radical reactivity) enables remote desaturation of diverse amines, amino acids, and peptides with excellent site-, chemo-, and regioselectivity. The key, enabling C-to-C HAT step in this cascade was computationally designed to satisfy both thermodynamic (bond strength) and kinetic (polarity) requirements, and it has been probed via regioselectivity, isomerization, and competition experiments. We have also interrupted this radical transfer dehydrogenation to achieve γ-selective C–Cl, C–CN, and C–N bond formations.

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