Recent advances in synthetic facets of immensely reactive azetidines

The synthetic chemistry of azetidine constitutes an important yet undeveloped research area, in spite of their ubiquity in natural products and importance in medicinal chemistry. Their aptness as amino acid surrogates along with their potential in peptidomimetic and nucleic acid chemistry is considered remarkable. Azetidines also possess important prospects in other settings such as catalytic processes including Henry, Suzuki, Sonogashira and Michael additions. They also represent an important class of strained compounds making them excellent candidates for ring-opening and expansion reactions. With this in mind, the present review article addresses the recent developments in synthetic strategies towards functionalized azetidines along with their versatility as heterocyclic synthons.