Trends in applying C-H oxidation to the total synthesis of natural products

Covering: 2006 to 2015 C-H functionalization remains one of the frontier challenges in organic chemistry and drives quite an active area of research. It has recently been applied in various novel strategies for the synthesis of natural products. It can dramatically increase synthetic efficiency when incorporated into retrosynthetic analyses of complex natural products, making it an essential part of current trends in organic synthesis. In this Review, we focus on selected case studies of recent applications of C-H oxidation methodologies in which the C-H bond has been exploited effectively to construct C-O and C-N bonds in natural product syntheses. Examples of syntheses representing different types of C-H oxidation are discussed to illustrate the potential of this approach and inspire future applications.