A new paper has been published and that is always good news. The paper entitled “Synthesis of new γ-lactones from preactivated monosubstituted pyrazines and TMS–ketene acetals” coauthored by Azucena Garduño-Alva, M. Carmen Ortega-Alfaro, José G. López-Cortés, Isabel Chávez, Joaquin Barroso-Flores, Rubén A. Toscano, Henri Rudler and Cecilio Álvarez-Toledano was a fruitful collaboration between several researchers from within the UNAM Institute of Chemistry and from other labs.

Therein, the lactone formation from pyrazines is analyzed, with some resulting orientations not quite in accordance with the common orientation patterns yield by electrondonor and electronwithrdawing groups. In order to assess the electronic structure of the intermediates and its influence on the resulting orientations, I performed a Fukui analysis based on the Natural Population formalism.