Protecting groups

The following review covers new developments in protecting group methodology which appeared in 1997. As with our previous annual review, our coverage is a personal selection of methods which we deemed interesting or useful. Many of the references were selected through a Science Citation Index search based on the root words block, protect and cleavage; however, casual reading unearthed many facets of protecting group chemistry which are beyond the pale of a typical keyword search. Inevitably our casual reading omits whole areas in which we lack expertise and so we cannot claim comprehensive coverage of the literature. The review is organised according to the functional groups protected with emphasis being placed on deprotection conditions. A separate annual review on combinatorial chemistry appeared earlier this year which incorporates the related subject of solid phase linker chemistry.