Catalytic transamidation under moderate conditions.

The carboxamide group is generally inert, except under harsh conditions or in the presence of highly evolved enzymes. We have identified several metal complexes that efficiently catalyze transamidation reactions of amide/amine mixtures under moderate conditions. This unprecedented reactivity represents an important step toward our long-term goal of using dynamic combinatorial chemistry to generate new amide-based molecules with interesting structures and functions.