Discovery of MCRs

Abstract

Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) are increasingly appreciated as efficient synthesis tools to rapidly access complex products. Syntheses involving MCRs save time and energy (step efficiency) and proceed with high convergence (process efficiency). In addition, MCRs are ideally suited for combinatorial chemistry and library design, and are of great utility in medicinal chemistry, materials science, recognition (host-guest) chemistry, and catalyst design. Especially, MCRs are believed to be crucial in exploiting the full potential of "diversity-oriented synthesis" (DOS) and "biology-oriented synthesis" (BIOS) design strategies for effective and functional library synthesis uncovering virgin areas of biologically relevant chemical space. This chapter describes the ways to discover new MCRs. It first discusses a couple of design strategies, after that it touches on some recent developments including application of biocatalysis and green chemistry principles.