Currently, the chemistry of organofluorine compounds is a leading and rapidly developing area of organic chemistry. Fluorine present in a molecule largely determines its specific chemical and biological properties. This thematic issue covers the trends of organofluorine chemistry that have been actively developed in Russia the last 15 – 20 years. The review describes nucleophilic substitution and heterocyclization reactions involving fluorinated arenes and quinones and skeletal cationoid rearrangements in the polyfluoroarene series. The transformations involving CF₃-substituted carbocations and radical cations are considered. Heterocyclization and oxidative addition reactions of trifluoroacetamide derivatives and transformations of the organic moiety in polyfluorinated organoboranes and borates with retention of the carbon – boron bond are discussed. Particular attention is devoted to catalytic olefination using freons as an efficient synthetic route to fluorinated compounds. The application of unsymmetrical fluorine-containing N-heterocyclic carbene ligands as catalysts for olefin metathesis is demonstrated. A variety of classes of organofluorine compounds are considered, in particular, polyfluorinated arenes and 1,2-diaminobenzenes, 1-halo-2-trifluoroacetylacetylenes, α-fluoronitro compounds, fluorinated heterocycles, 2-hydrazinylidene-1,3-dicarbonyl derivatives, imines and silanes. The potential practical applications of organofluorine compounds in fundamental organic chemistry, materials science and biomedicine are outlined. The bibliography includes 1019 references.

Sulfonamides are the basic motifs for a whole generation of drugs from a large group of antibiotics. Currently, research in the field of the new sulfonamide synthesis has received a “second wind”, due to the increase in the synthetic capabilities of organic chemistry and the study of their medical and biological properties of a wide spectrum of biological activity. New reagents and new reactions make it possible to significantly increase the number of compounds with a sulfonamide fragment in combination with other important pharmacophore groups, such as, for example, a wide class of N-containing heterocycles. The result of these synthetic possibilities is the extension of the activity spectrum—along with antibacterial activity, many of them exhibit other types of biological activity. Antiviral activity is also observed in a wide range of sulfonamide derivatives. This review provides examples of the synthesis of sulfonamide compounds with antiviral properties that can be used to develop drugs against coxsackievirus B, enteroviruses, encephalomyocarditis viruses, adenoviruses, human parainfluenza viruses, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, SARS-CoV-2, HIV and others. Since over the past three years, viral infections have become a special problem for public health throughout the world, the development of new broad-spectrum antiviral drugs is an extremely important task for synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry. Sulfonamides can be both sources of nitrogen for building a nitrogen-containing heterocyclic core and the side chain substituents of a biologically active substance. The formation of the sulfonamide group is often achieved by the reaction of the N-nucleophilic center in the substrate molecule with the corresponding sulfonylchloride. Another approach involves the use of sulfonamides as the reagents for building a nitrogen-containing framework.

The reaction of trimethyl(vinyl)silane with sulfonamides in the presence of N-bromosuccinimide was shown to proceed regioselectively in methylene chloride under mild conditions and led to the products of bromosulfamidation in up to 88% yield. The obtained adducts undergo base-promoted dehydrobromination to give 2-trimethylsilyl-N-sulfonyl aziridines in a close to quantitative yield. In the reaction with trifluoromethanesulfonamide in acetonitrile or tetrahydrofuran, the Ritter-type (solvent-interception) products were obtained and converted to 1-triflyl-2-methyl-5-(trimethylsilyl)-2-imidazoline or 4-triflyl-3-(trimethylsilyl)-1,4-oxazocane in almost quantitative yield.