Toward the most versatile fluorophore: Direct functionalization of BODIPY dyes via regioselective C—H bond activation

Fluorescent dyes are heavily sought for their potentials applications in bioimaging, sensing, theranostic, and optoelectronic materials. Among them, BODIPY dyes are privileged fluorophores that are now widely used in highly diverse research fields. The increasing success of BODIPY dyes is closely associated with their excellent and tunable photophysical properties due to their rich functionalization chemistry. Recently, growing research efforts have been devoted to the direct functionalization of the BODIPY core, because it allows the facile installation of desired functional groups in a single atom economical step. The challenges of this direct C—H derivation come from the difficulties in finding suitable functionalization agents and proper control of the regioselectivity of the functionalization. The aim of this work is to provide an overview of BODIPY dyes and a summarization of the different synthetic methodologies reported for direct C—H functionalization of the BODIPY framework.