The incorporation of fluorinated moieties into organic structures is a particularly powerful approach for generating compounds with useful biological applications in industry, pharmacology, and agriculture. Here, the recently developed reagent-CF HCHN -selectively esterifies carboxyl groups on organic molecules in the presence of other polar functional groups. The reaction is remarkably simple, proceeding at room temperature in chloroform without addition of a catalyst. The procedure allows "last-step" incorporation of a fluorinated ester moiety into organic structures, including bioorganic molecules such as peptides and proteins. The fluorinated ester can subsequently function as a F-probe in biomolecules, thereby enabling molecular size determination by diffusion F NMR experiments.
The frontispiece picture shows lightning, symbolizing the novel reactivity mode of difluoromethyldiazomethane—CF2HCHN2—discovered by chemists from Ukraine, Germany and France. CF2HCHN2 was found to selectively react with carboxylic acids in the presence of other functional groups. The fluorinated esters can subsequently function as 19F‐probes in biomolecules, thereby enabling molecular size determination by diffusion 19F NMR experiments. For more details, see the Communcation by P. K. Mykhailiuk et al. on page 13279 ff.
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