Sulfonyl Fluorides (SFs): More Than Click Reagents?

Sulfonyl fluoride (SF) containing substances are currently attracting enormous attention among practitioners of both chemical biology and synthetic organic chemistry. The groups of Jones and Liskamp have demonstrated the potential of sulfonyl fluorides as selective covalent inhibitors in studies related to drug discovery and chemical biology, respectively, in the last few years. The Sharpless group has extended the repertoire of click-reactions to those involving sulfonyl fluorides, that is, sulfur-fluoride exchange (SuFEx), a development that quickly triggered the interest in this functional group in the community of synthetic organic chemists. In this microreview, we aim to give an account of the synthetic chemistry surrounding sulfonyl fluoride containing substances from a historical perspective to present day developments.