Functionalization of imidazole N-oxide: a recent discovery in organic transformations

Nowadays heterocyclic compounds are widely used in medicinal chemistry and industry to develop life-saving drugs and medicines. Imidazole is one of the pharmacologically important heterocyclic motifs found in widely used and well-known medicines and bioactive molecules. The applications of imidazole derivatives displaying various biological activities, motivated researchers for the development of more potent and significant drugs containing imidazole moieties. The formation of imidazole derivatives can be achieved using imidazole N-oxide as starting material. In this review, the scope of substrates and reaction mechanisms of various synthetic approaches using imidazole N-oxides as substrates are summarized so that the chemists, researchers, and pharmaceutical industries find its effectiveness in near future for the synthesis of potent, novel, and non-toxic drug molecules.