Aqueous sulphides, including hydrogen sulphide, have important roles in biological signalling and metabolic processes. Here we develop a selective sulphide-trapping strategy involving sulphide addition to an aldehyde; the resulting hemithioacetal undergoes a michael addition with an adjacent unsaturated acrylate ester to form a thioacetal at neutral pH in aqueous solution. Employing this new strategy, two sulphide-selective fluorescent probes, sFP-1 and sFP-2, were synthesized on the basis of two different fluorophore templates. These probes exhibit an excellent fluorescence increase and an emission maximum shift (sFP-1) in response to na 2 s and H 2 s in a high thiol background as found under physiological conditions. We show the utility of the probes for the selective detection of sulphides, and the capacity of our probes to monitor enzymatic H 2 s biogenesis and image free sulphide in living cells.

Efficient methods have been developed to synthesize azetidine, pyrrolidine, and indoline compounds via palladium-catalyzed intramolecular amination of C-H bonds at the γ and δ positions of picolinamide (PA) protected amine substrates. These methods feature relatively a low catalyst loading, use of inexpensive reagents, and convenient operating conditions. Their selectivities are predictable. These methods highlight the use of unactivated C-H bond, especially the C(sp(3))-H bond of methyl groups, as functional groups in organic synthesis.

We report an efficient method for the alkylation of γ-C(sp(3))-H bonds of picolinamide-protected aliphatic amine substrates with primary alkyl iodides via palladium catalysis. Ag(2)CO(3) and dibenzyl phosphate, (BnO)(2)PO(2)H, are critical promoters of this reaction. These reactions provide a convenient and straightforward method for the preparation of high-value N-containing products from readily available amine and alkyl iodide precursors.

We report a new set of reactions based on the Pd-catalyzed alkylation of methylene C(sp(3))-H bonds of aliphatic quinolyl carboxamides with α-haloacetate and methyl iodide and applications in the stereoselective synthesis of various β-alkylated α-amino acids. These reactions represent the first generally applicable method for the catalytic alkylation of unconstrained and unactivated methylene C-H bonds with high synthetic relevance. When applied with simple isotope-enriched reagents, they also provide a convenient and powerful means to site-selectively incorporate isotopes into the carbon scaffolds of amino acid compounds.