Click Chemistry - What’s in a Name? Triazole Synthesis and Beyond

The environmentally amiable route to carbon-heteroatom bond formation, described by Sharpless as 'click chemistry', has become known as a fast, efficient, and reliable approach to the synthesis of novel compounds with desired functionalities. Readily available starting materials must be used in this methodology and they should be essentially inert to most biological and organic conditions, including water and molecular oxygen. In this review, we cover reactions included in this label such as cycloadditions, nucleophilic ring-opening reactions of strained cycles, and amide synthesis, as well as their applications in organic synthesis, molecular biology, macromolecular chemistry and materials science.