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.

Transition metal-free one-pot reaction of quinolines with acylarylacetylenes and water proceeds in the presence of KOH (55-60 °C, MeCN, 48 h) to afford 2-aryl-3-acylquinolines in up to 66% yield. Here, a formal replacement of the acetylene moiety by the aryl and acyl substituents in the quinoline scaffold takes place. In fact, it has been proved experimentally that the reaction involves the ring cleavage, accompanied by the rearrangement and insertion of the electron-deficient acetylene moiety to form a dihydroquinoline intermediate with an aldehyde functional group in position 4. This intermediate gives the corresponding doubly functionalized quinolines.

Acylethynylpyrroles undergo facile (rt, MeCN or MeOH, 24–72 h) catalyst-free annulation with 1-pyrrolines to afford acylmethylenetetrahydrodipyrrolo­[1,2-a:1′,2′-c]­imidazoles in up to 93% yield and 90% E-stereoselectivity of the olefin moiety.