Trifluoromethyl nitrogen heterocycles: synthetic aspects and potential biological targets

Recent advances regarding the synthetic chemistry of fluorinated aziridines, azetidines, pyrrolidines and their lactam/amino acid counterparts are presented. These heterocycles are of high importance both as building blocks for more complex structures and as active parts of medicinal chemistry-oriented compounds. The synthetic methodologies and the potential biological targets of α-trifluoromethylated nitrogen heterocycles are presented.