General synthetic avenues to the pyrido-annulated triazolium salts with different steric and electronic properties have been developed. This architecture can be readily altered with different N-alkyl or aryl substituents at the N2 position of the triazole ring and modifications to the pyridine backbone. Deprotonation of the triazolium salts 12 with NaH led to formation of stable carbenes 11 at room temperature as clearly demonstrated through ESI mass spectra and by observation of the characteristic (13)C NMR resonance for the carbene carbon at delta = 202-208 ppm. In sharp contrast, treatment of these triazolium salts with K2CO3 led to dimerization of free carbenes 11. The dimeric enetetramine (11b)2 could react with elemental sulfur to deliver the corresponding thiourea 16 in toluene at 80 degrees C in good yield. A silver complex with the pyrido[1,2-a][1,2,4]triazol-3-ylidene is described, and the molecular structure of complex 17 was established by X-ray crystallography. The triazolium salts 12 turned out to be powerful catalysts in catalytic benzoin condensations and transesterifications at 25 degrees C. The catalytic activity was largely dependent on the steric and electronic nature of the R(1) and R(2) substituents of the triazolium salt. We rationalized that this type of triazolium-catalyzed benzoin condensations should undergo the "traditional" Breslow mechanism rather than the pathway of the dimer (11)2 as the real catalytic species.

Visible light-promoted dearomative [2 + 2] cycloaddition of indole derivatives tethered with olefins at the N1 position has been considered thermodynamically unfeasible due to the high triplet excited-state energies. We describe visible light-promoted [2 + 2] cycloaddition with concomitant dearomatization of indole derivatives tethered with olefins at the N1 position via the energy transfer process, providing cyclobutane-fused polycyclic indoline derivatives that are potentially useful in drug design and discovery. These cyclobutane-fused indoline-based polycycles are obtained in high yields and with good diastereoselectivities (>99:1). The key to the success of the reaction is the formation of H-bond(s) between N-alkenoylindole and solvent, enabling the reduction of the triplet energy of the indole derivatives, which greatly improved the efficiency of the protocol. The applicability of the method is demonstrated by late-stage skeletal diversification of indole-containing bioactive molecules, which provides a powerful strategy for the rapid skeleton remodeling. DFT calculations were used to give a deep understanding of the reaction pathways.

A monometallic bifunctional catalyst, in which only one imidazolyl moiety is directly attached at the 3-position of a binaphthol moiety, has been developed. The ligand (R)-1, which lacks C2-symmetry and flexible linkers, in combination with Ti(OiPr)4, has been demonstrated to promote the enantioselective cyanation of aldehydes with trimethylsilylcyanide (TMSCN), giving excellent enantioselectivities of up to 98 % ee and high yields of up to 99 %. The use of this bifunctional catalytic system obviates the need for additives and is extremely simple as the reagents are added in one portion at the beginning of the reaction. The protocol has been found to tolerate a relatively wide range of aldehydes when 10 mol % of the (R)-1/Ti(OiPr)4 complex is deployed in CH2Cl2 at -40 degrees C, the conditions which proved most practical and effective. The asymmetric cyanations also proceeded with lower catalyst loadings (5 mol %, or even 2 mol %), still giving satisfactory enantiomeric excesses and yields. Interestingly, the use of freshly distilled TMSCN dried over CaH2 gave a low enantioselectivity and only a moderate yield of the adduct as compared with direct use of the commercial reagent. The results of 13C NMR spectroscopic studies implicate HCN as the actual reactive nucleophile.

P450 119 peroxygenase and its site-directed mutants are discovered to catalyze the enantioselective epoxidation of methyl-substituted styrenes. Two new site-directed P450 119 mutants, namely T213Y and T213M, which were designed to improve the enantioselectivity and activity for the epoxidation of styrene and its methyl substituted derivatives, were studied. The T213M mutant is found to be the first engineered P450 peroxygenase that shows highly enantioselective epoxidation of cis-β-methylstyrenes, with up to 91 % ee. Molecular modeling studies provide insights into the different catalytic activity of the T213M mutant and the T213Y mutant in the epoxidation of cis-β-methylstyrene. The results of the calculations also contribute to a better understanding of the substrate specificity and configuration control for the regio- and stereoselective peroxygenation catalyzed by the T213M mutant.

N-Heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) can serve as very reactive nucleophilic catalysts and exhibit strong basicity. Herein, we initiate a combined experimental and computational investigation of the NHC-catalyzed ring-closing reactions of 4-(2-formylphenoxy)but-2-enoate derivatives 1 to uncover the relationship between the counteranion of an azolium salt, the nucleophilicity and basicity of the carbene species, and the catalytic performance of the carbene species by taking imidazolium salts IPr⋅HX (X=counteranion, IPr=1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazol-2-ylidene) as the representative precatalysts. The plausible mechanisms of IPr-mediated ring-closing reactions have been investigated by using DFT calculations. The hydrogen-accepting ability, assigned as the basicity of the counteranion of IPr⋅HX and evaluated by DFT calculations, is correlated with the rate of deprotonation of C2 in IPr⋅HX, which could be monitored by the capture of the free carbene formed in situ with elemental sulfur. The deprotonation of C2 in IPr⋅HX with a more basic anion gives rise to a higher concentration of the free carbene and vice versa. At a relatively low concentration, IPr prefers to show a nucleophilic character to induce the intramolecular Stetter reaction. At a relatively high concentration, IPr primarily acts as a base to afford benzofuran derivatives. These data comprehensively disclose, for the first time, that the counteranions of azolium salts significantly influence not only the catalytic activity, but also possibly the reaction mechanism.