Recently, Dai Huixiong's research group of Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica has provided an efficient method for the synthesis of deuterated natural products and drug molecules by conducting deuterization reaction research based on the activation of C-C bond of aromatic ketones. The related research results are titled Palladium Catalyzed Deuteration of Arylketone Oxime Ethers and published in the German Journal of Applied Chemistry.

Carbon carbon bonds are the chemical bonds that form the basic framework of organic compounds. The breaking and recombination of carbon carbon bonds are common in living organisms and industrial production. Therefore, the development of new methods for carbon carbon bond breaking is of great significance. Compared with the widely studied and increasingly mature methods for carbon carbon bond formation, the methodological research on carbon carbon bond fracture is relatively lagging behind.

Organic ketones are important organic compounds that are widely present in drug molecules, functional materials, and natural products. The effective conversion of ketone compounds can be achieved by activating carbon carbon bonds through transition metal catalysis; These types of raw materials come from a wide range of sources and are readily available, thus providing new aryl, alkynyl, and alkylating reagents. Dai Huixiong's research group is committed to achieving a series of functional group transformations of aromatic ketones and enones through the development of multi ligand synergistic relay strategies under the catalysis of palladium metal.

On the basis of preliminary work, the research group used aromatic ketones as substrates, sodium deuterated formate as a deuterium source, and acyl groups as leaving groups to achieve palladium catalyzed ligand promoted regioselective deuterization reaction; By using acyl groups as directing and leaving groups, bifunctionalization modification of aromatic ketone substrates is achieved. This reaction provides a convenient method for synthesizing deuterated natural products and drug molecules.

The research work has received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, as well as the Shanghai Academic Leaders Program and the Shanghai Super Postdoctoral Incentive Program.

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