A sulfur matchmaker for fluorous coupling Fluorination is a burgeoning technique for fine-tuning the properties of pharmaceutical compounds. Unfortunately, the cross-coupling reactions widely used to make carbon-carbon bonds in drug research can be tripped up by fluorine substituents. Merchant et al. report a class of easily prepared, solid sulfone compounds that engage in nickel-catalyzed coupling of their fluoroalkyl groups with aryl zinc reagents. These sulfones considerably simplify the synthetic routes to fluorinated analogs that would previously have required multistep strategies focused strictly on the fluorination protocol. Science, this issue p. 75 Stable sulfone compounds facilitate introduction of fluoroalkyl substituents into targets for medicinal chemistry research. Cross-coupling chemistry is widely applied to carbon-carbon bond formation in the synthesis of medicines, agrochemicals, and other functional materials. Recently, single-electron–induced variants of this reaction class have proven particularly useful in the formation of C(sp2)–C(sp3) linkages, although certain compound classes have remained a challenge. Here, we report the use of sulfones to activate the alkyl coupling partner in nickel-catalyzed radical cross-coupling with aryl zinc reagents. This method’s tolerance of fluoroalkyl substituents proved particularly advantageous for the streamlined preparation of pharmaceutically oriented fluorinated scaffolds that previously required multiple steps, toxic reagents, and nonmodular retrosynthetic blueprints. Five specific sulfone reagents facilitate the rapid assembly of a vast set of compounds, many of which contain challenging fluorination patterns.

中文翻译：

---

与砜的模块化自由基交叉偶联能够获得富含 sp3 的（氟）烷基化支架

氟偶联的硫媒剂 氟化是一种新兴技术，用于微调药物化合物的特性。不幸的是，在药物研究中广泛用于形成碳-碳键的交叉偶联反应可能会被氟取代基绊倒。商人等。报道了一类易于制备的固体砜化合物，它们在镍催化下将氟代烷基与芳基锌试剂偶联。这些砜大大简化了氟化类似物的合成路线，以前需要严格专注于氟化协议的多步骤策略。科学，这个问题 p。75 稳定的砜化合物有助于将氟代烷基取代基引入药物化学研究的目标。交叉偶联化学广泛应用于药物、农药和其他功能材料合成中的碳-碳键形成。最近，这种反应类别的单电子诱导变体已被证明在 C(sp2)–C(sp3) 键的形成中特别有用，尽管某些化合物类别仍然是一个挑战。在这里，我们报告了在镍催化自由基与芳基锌试剂交叉偶联中使用砜来激活烷基偶联伙伴。这种方法对氟烷基取代基的耐受性证明特别有利于药物导向的氟化支架的简化制备，这些支架以前需要多个步骤、有毒试剂和非模块化逆合成蓝图。五种特定的砜试剂有助于快速组装大量化合物，