Cyclometallation of Heterocycles: A Reliable Strategy for Selective Functionalization

Heterocyclic compounds are of paramount importance in essentially all fields of chemistry and in our daily life. Therefore, the synthesis and modification of such compounds is a constantly expanding field in synthetic chemistry. Recent developments of functionalization of heterocycles by means of cyclometallation (also called chelation-assisted functionalization), both stoichiometric and catalytic, indicate that this strategy displays enormous potential. In particular, this method facilitates considerably the synthesis of functionalized heterocycles in a regioselective (site-selective) manner, and also provides novel types of synthetic transformations.