Investigation of new methods for the synthesis of C-C bonds is fundamental for the development of new organic drugs and materials. Aryl-, alkenyl- and alkynylboronic acids and their derivatives constitute attractive reagents towards this end, due to their stability, low toxicity and ease of handling. However, these compounds are only moderately nucleophilic. Consequently, the most popular C-C bond forming reactions of these boronic acids, such as the Suzuki-Miyaura, Heck, and Hayashi-Miyaura reactions, or additions to C=O and C=N bonds, require catalysis by transition metals. However, due to the toxicity and cost of transition metals, some new methods for C-C bond formation using aryl-, alkenyl- and alkynylboronic acids under transition-metal-free conditions are beginning to emerge. In this tutorial review, the recent synthetic advances in this field are highlighted and discussed.

The synthesis of di(hetero)arylamines by a transition-metal-free cross-coupling between nitrosoarenes and boronic acids is reported. The procedure is experimentally simple, fast, mild, and scalable and has a wide functional group tolerance, including carbonyls, nitro, halogens, free OH and NH groups. It also permits the synthesis of sterically hindered compounds.

No need for transition-metal catalysis in amination, amidation, nitration or nitrosation reactions with boron derivatives as reagents.

The first synthesis of carbasugars, compounds in which the ring oxygen of a monosaccharide had been replaced by a methylene moiety, was described in 1966 by Professor G. E. McCasland's group. Seven years later, the first true natural carbasugar (5a-carba-R-D-galactopyranose) was isolated from a fermentation broth of Streptomyces sp. MA-4145. In the following decades, the chemistry and biology of carbasugars have been extensively studied. Most of these compounds show interesting biological properties, especially enzymatic inhibitory activities, and, in consequence, an important number of analogues have also been prepared in the search for improved biological activities. The aim of this review is to give coverage on the progress made in two important aspects of these compounds: the elucidation of their biosynthesis and the consideration of their biological properties, including the extensively studied carbapyranoses as well as the much less studied carbafuranoses.

In this review recent advances in the metal-catalyzed 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions of nitrile oxides are highlighted, covering references from the period 2000 until August 2018.

Novel valdecoxib-based cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors were synthesized in one step 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of nitrile oxides with a series of eleven aryl alkynes, six of them described for the first time. Application of Ru(ii)-catalysis leads preferably to the formation of the 3,4-diaryl-substituted isoxazoles, while under thermal heating with base the 3,5-diaryl substitution pattern is favoured. The new the 3,4-diaryl-substituted isoxazoles possessing a small substituent (H and Me) displayed high COX-2 inhibition affinity (IC = 0.042-0.073 μM) and excellent selectivity (COX-2 SI > 2000). In contrast, the 3,5-diaryl substituted compounds displayed almost no COX activity. The introduction of a 4-fluorophenyl substituent resulted in retained high COX-2 affinity, making these compounds together with the feasible one step reaction promising candidates for the development of fluorine-18 labelled radiotracers.

Metathesis reactions is firmly established as a valuable synthetic tool in organic chemistry, clearly comparable with the venerable Diels-Alder and Wittig reactions and, more recently, with the metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. Metathesis reactions can be considered as a fascinating synthetic methodology, allowing different variants regarding substrate (alkene and alkyne metathesis) and type of metathetical reactions. On the other hand, tandem metathesis reactions such Ring Rearrangement Metathesis (RRM) and the coupling of metathesis reaction with other reactions of alkenes such as Diels-Alder or Heck reactions, makes metathesis one of the most powerful and reliable synthetic procedure. In particular, Ring-Rearrangement Metathesis (RRM) refers to the combination of several metathesis transformations into a domino process such as ringopening metathesis (ROM)/ring-closing metathesis (RCM) and ROM-cross metathesis (CM) in a one-pot operation. RRM delivers complex frameworks that are difficult to assemble by conventional methods constitutingan atom economic process. RRM is applicable to mono-and polycyclic systems of varying ring sizes such as cyclopropene, cyclobutene, cyclopentene, cyclohexene, pyran systems, bicyclo[2.2.1]heptene derivatives, bicyclo[2.2.2]octene derivatives, bicyclo[3.2.1]octene derivatives and bicyclo[3.2.1]octene derivatives. In this review our attention has focused on the RRM reactions in 7-oxabicyclo[2.2.1]heptene derivatives and on their application in the synthesis of natural products or significant subunits of them.

The transition-metal-free intermolecular direct 1,2-carboboration reaction of heteroarylacetylenes using boronic acids as reagents is achieved by utilizing tartaric acid as promoter. The reaction proceeds with excellent regioselectivity and anti stereoselectivity to afford boroxole frameworks. The resulting compounds are of use for the stereoselective preparation of polysubstituted alkenylheteroarenes.