Recent advances in photochemical strain-release reactions of bicyclo[1.1.0]butanes

Bicyclo[1.1.0]butanes (BCBs) are attractive compounds for their beautiful "butterfly" conformations, distinctive properties, and novel reactivities. As soon as the first example had been synthesized, a wide range of strain-release reactions were explored for the preparation of cyclobutanes and bicyclic systems in the ground state or excited state. In particular, with the demand for the construction of rigid three-dimensional aliphatic skeletons to "escape from flatland" in drug discovery programs, numerous efforts have been devoted in this area to expanding the boundaries of their reactivities and broadening the chemical space of their attractive bioisosteric products. In recent years, with the great resurgence and dramatic evolution of photochemistry, photochemical strain-release reactions generally relying on single electron transfer (SET) or energy transfer (EnT) strategies can provide much more opportunities and capability for innovative transformations of BCBs. In this review, we summarize and highlight the recent advances (year > 2016) of this topic and hope that it will inspire much more wonderful chemistry of BCBs.