Amidines: their synthesis, reactivity, and applications in heterocyclic synthesis

The reactivity of amidines makes them valuable as building blocks for the synthesis of heterocyclic motifs of biological relevance, for functional materials, for organo-catalysts and as ligand in metal-complexes. As a large number of publications have recently reported on the reactivity of amidines, we compiled some features of these interesting molecules. Consequently, this article aims to review the preparation of functionalized amidines and to highlight their use as starting materials in the synthesis of various organic molecule classes, especially heterocyclic structures. In this review, we cover also related name reactions such as the Pinner reaction.