The front cover picture, provided by Yanlong Gu and co-workers, describes a class of versatile benzannulation reagents, 2-alkoxy-2,3-dihydrofurans that can be obtained from readily available substrates through a simple synthetic operation. Indoles, carbazoles, naphthalenes, benzofurans, and benzothiophenes can be synthesized
via the [4+2] annulation of 2-butoxy-2,3-dihydrofuran with various electron-rich heterocycles or arenes in the presence of Lewis acid or Brønsted acid catalysts. Details can be found in the communication on pages 2260–2266 (C. Liu, W. Huang, M.
Wang, B. Pan, Y. Gu,
Adv. Synth. Catal.
2016,
358, 2260–2266; DOI:
10.1002/adsc.201600185).