Activatable cyclopropenes
are unreactive toward their inverse electron
demand Diels–Alder reaction partner (e.g., s-tetrazines) until they are activated. The activation strategy is
highly modular due to the cyclopropene’s ability to be caged
by various light- and enzyme-activatable groups. This work describes
the next generation of activatable cyclopropenes with a new core scaffold
that maintains the activation modularity of the first generation but
improves upon the ligation kinetics with s-tetrazines
by ≤270-fold.