Recently completed total syntheses and the ingenious synthetic approaches developed for the construction of the biologically significant polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinols (PPAPs) are discussed by D. Y.-K. Chen et al. in a Review. What are the state-of-the-art synthetic methods and strategies? The Highlights deal with tamed silylium ions in catalysis (A. Schulz and A. Villinger), nitrogen fixation (M. G. Scheibel and S. Schneider), and the asymmetric fluorination of alkenes using phase transfer catalysis (U. Hennecke).
In the Communications section, A. G. Myers et al. introduce pseudoephenamine as a versatile chiral auxiliary in asymmetric synthesis. M. Jansen et al. succeeded in an efficient intramolecular aryl–aryl coupling, which is key in rational syntheses of fullerenes and extended buckybowl structures. F. Yan et al. demonstrate that a nanoprobe based on SnO2 nanoparticles can be used for target-cell-specific imaging and in situ detection of intracellular miRNA. M. U. Schmidt et al. elucidated the crystal structures of the hydration states of the common pigment Red 57:1, which is also used to print Angewandte Chemie (see picture).
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