Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: Porphyrins are the most widespread of all prosthetic groups found in Nature. The ubiquity of their functions in Nature led researchers around the globe to focus their attention on these highly colored macrocycles. The interdisciplinary interest generated by porphyrins resulted in the syntheses of modified porphyrins, which can be put to a variety of uses in medicine and industry. A brief overview of the synthetic methodologies resulting in the formation of aromatic meso-aryl-substituted core-modified aromatic heterocyclic ring-inserted expanded porphyrinoids like sapphyrins, smaragdyrins, rubyrins, hexaphyrins, heptaphyrins, and octaphyrins reported to date are discussed in this article.