From Phenols to Natural Products Mediated by Hypervalent Iodine Reagents, an Account

The synthesis of natural products in a concise manner is an ongoing challenge. Recently, hypervalent iodine reagents have emerged as mild environmentally friendly oxidizing agents in organic synthesis. Through aromatic umpolung, these reagents convert unreactive phenol substrates into polyfunctionalized dienones through intermolecular or intramolecular nucleophilic capture. Dienones are important synthetic building blocks in organic synthesis because they can undergo numerous reactions. This graphical review highlights the works of our group to use dienones as building blocks to obtain complex natural products such as terpenes, carbasugars and alkaloids to name a few.