“…Beyond the bioconjugation field, the present report also highlights the breadth of the reactivity of azide groups behaving as electrophiles (i.e., umpolung reactivity): while phosphine-mediated azide reactions (i.e., phosphazide − and iminophosphorane , ) are known to cause nucleophilic attack toward various electrophiles, − covalent bond formation with nucleophiles (amine groups) is unprecedented. Perhaps ionic-liquid-mediated reactivity enhancement plays a key role in the activation of the reaction intermediates (Figure S35), − promoting the electrophilic nature of the phosphine azide species to cause the N–N bond formation reaction. , Interestingly, although nitrogen-rich functional groups such as diazirine, azide, and tetrazine have been extensively studied and utilized in a wide variety of chemistry fields, ,, tetrazene is extremely understudied to date, presumably because of the dearth of mild and selective synthetic methodologies. , Given the excellent chemoselectivity as well as the abundance of amine- or azide-containing molecules, the present method provides new opportunities for the investigation of the tetrazene group.…”