1,2,4-Oxadiazole is an essential motif in drug discovery represented in many experimental, investigational, and marketed drugs. This review covers synthetic methods that allow the conversion of different types of organic compounds into 1,2,4-oxadiazole at ambient temperature and the practical application of the latter approaches for the preparation of pharmaceutically important molecules. The discussed methods are divided into three groups. The first combines two-stage protocols requiring the preliminary preparation of O-acylamidoximes followed by cyclization under the action of organic bases. The advantages of this route are its swiftness, high efficiency of the cyclization process, and uncomplicated work-up. However, it requires the preparation and isolation of O-acylamidoximes as a separate preliminary step. The second route is a one-pot synthesis of 1,2,4-oxadiazoles directly from amidoximes and various carboxyl derivatives or aldehydes in aprotic bipolar solvents (primarily DMSO) in the presence of inorganic bases. This recently proposed pathway proved to be highly efficient in the field of medicinal chemistry. The third group of methods consists of diverse oxidative cyclizations, and these reactions have found modest application in drug design thus far. It is noteworthy that the reviewed methods allow for obtaining 1,2,4-oxadiazoles with thermosensitive functions and expand the prospects of using the oxadiazole core as an amide- or ester-like linker in the design of bioactive compounds.

A place for M⋯O NO ₂ semicoordination was found in the entire range of interactions that occur between a NO ₂ group and metal sites.

The cis- and trans-isomers of 6-(3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,4-oxadiazol-5-yl)cyclohex-3-ene-1-carboxylic acid (cis-A and trans-A) were obtained by the reaction of 3,4-dichloro-N′-hydroxybenzimidamide and cis-1,2,3,6-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride. Cocrystals of cis-A with appropriate solvents (cis-A‧½(1,2-DCE), cis-A‧½(1,2-DBE), and cis-A‧½C₆H₁₄) were grown from 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCE), 1,2-dibromoethane (1,2-DBE), and a n-hexane/CHCl₃ mixture and then characterized by X-ray crystallography. In their structures, cis-A is self-assembled to give a hybrid 2D supramolecular organic framework (SOF) formed by the cooperative action of O–H⋯O hydrogen bonding, Cl⋯O halogen bonding, and π⋯π stacking. The self-assembled cis-A divides the space between the 2D SOF layers into infinite hollow tunnels incorporating solvent molecules. The energy contribution of each noncovalent interaction to the occurrence of the 2D SOF was verified by several theoretical approaches, including MEP and combined QTAIM and NCIplot analyses. The consideration of the theoretical data proved that hydrogen bonding (approx. −15.2 kcal/mol) is the most important interaction, followed by π⋯π stacking (approx. −11.1 kcal/mol); meanwhile, the contribution of halogen bonding (approx. −3.6 kcal/mol) is the smallest among these interactions. The structure of the isomeric compound trans-A does not exhibit a 2D SOF architecture. It is assembled by the combined action of hydrogen bonding and π⋯π stacking, without the involvement of halogen bonds. A comparison of the cis-A structures with that of trans-A indicated that halogen bonding, although it has the lowest energy in cis-A-based cocrystals, plays a significant role in the crystal design of the hybrid 2D SOF. The majority of the reported porous halogen-bonded organic frameworks were assembled via iodine and bromine-based contacts, while chlorine-based systems—which, in our case, are structure-directing—were unknown before this study.