Synlett 2008(15): 2384-2385  
DOI: 10.1055/s-2008-1067117
SPOTLIGHT
© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart ˙ New York

N-Hydroxysuccinimide (NHS)

Ping’‘’An Wang*
Research Center for Chirotechnology, Fourth Military Medical University, FMMU, Xi’an 710032, P. R. of China
e-Mail: ping_an1718@yahoo.com.cn;
Further Information

Publication History

Publication Date:
02 July 2008 (online)

Introduction

N-Hydroxysuccinimide (NHS, NHSI, or HOSu), a white crystalline solid with a melting point of 99-100 ˚C, was first introduced by Anderson in peptide synthesis. [¹] Since then, NHS has been widely used as activating or protecting reagent in organic and bio-organic synthesis [²] because of its high reactivity, good hydrophilicity, ease of formation of peptide bonds, and commercial availability. Recently, NHS has been exploited for a number of other utilities in synthetic chemistry: it was used as auxiliary for oxidations, activating reagent for selective reductions and coupling reactions of bulky substrates, additive for acceleration of Passerini reactions under aqueous conditions, and efficient ligand for N-arylations. NHS can easily be prepared from equivalent amounts of succinic anhydride and hydroxylamine hydrochloride. [³]

Figure 1 N-Hydroxysuccinimide (NHS)