Aromatic substitution reactions with multiple substituents

Pd-catalyzed site-selective cross-coupling reactions demonstrate the influential role of ligands in transition metal catalysis. The reactions described in this review discuss efficient approaches to introduce various substituents at specific halo-substituted posititMis (Ml (hetero)aromatic compounds. The commercial availability of a variety of dihalo-substituted starting materials makes site-selective crosscoupling reactions practical for the rapid production of diverse (hetero)arenes with multiple substituents. In all examples described here, the reactions proceeded successfully only on substrates containing hetero atoms, and this field of chemistry aims to include substrates without hetero atoms in the substrate scope. 

Substitution of halopurines at C-2 and C-6 has become a well-developed synthetic process, with a wide variety of nucleophilic aromatic substitution and palladium-catalyzed C-N or C-O hond formations exemplified in the literature. The use of selective, sequential substitution reactions on polyhalopurine scaffolds is the basis of an increasing number of combinatorial syntheses of polysubstituted purines, both in solution and on solid phase. The introduction of N-, 0-, or S-substituents has often been combined with transition metal-catalyzed C-C bond-forming reactions (see Section 10.11.7.4.2) and selective N-alkylation (see Section 10.11.5.2.1) to provide versatile routes to purines with multiple, diverse substituents. 

In spite of the general ambiphilicity of phosphonio-substituted phosphoHde derivatives, the aromaticity of the phosphoHde ring [10, 11] tends to reduce their electrophilicity while the intramolecular compensation of the negative charge by the phosphonio-substituents lowers at the same time their nucle-ophilicity [15, 16]. Bis-phosphonio-benzophospholides and -1,2,4-diaza-phospholides are therefore less reactive towards electrophiles and nucleophiles than other types of phosphorus containing multiple-bond systems and lack the notorious hydrolytic instabihty of many of these species [15, 16, 24]. Reactions are observed, however, with sufficiently strong electrophiles such as triflic acid or methyl triflate, or nucleophiles such as OH" or lithium alkyls, respectively. 

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