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Upon treatment with a Cu catalyst oxime acetates can be converted into sulfonylvinylamine products, which will further transform into useful β-ketosulfones upon hydrolysis with H₂O. H. Jiang et al. describe in their Communication on page 4205 ff. how the oxime acetates act as both the substrate and oxidant, thus giving the process an environmentally friendly character. The background shows the ancient Chinese symbol “The Eight Trigrams” to indicate the harmony between humans and nature, which is also the purpose of green chemistry.

Total syntheses of the dimeric tetrahydroxanthone natural products secalonic acids A and D are described. Key steps involve kinetic resolution of the tetrahydroxanthone core structure using homobenzotetramisole catalysis and late-stage copper(I)-mediated homodimerization of complex aryl stannane monomers.

It takes two: Concise syntheses of the natural products secalonic acids A and D using copper(I)-mediated dimerization of complex aryl stannane monomers to construct the requisite 2,2′-biphenol linkage are reported. Highly efficient kinetic resolution of the monomeric tetrahydroxanthone core structures was achieved using homobenzotetramisole catalysis. DMA=N,N-dimethyl acetamide, MOM=methoxymethyl.