bears the largest HOMO, while the end olefinic carbons of methyl acrylate and styrene bear the largest LUMO. Hence, cycloaddition gives the substitution at the C-3 position regioselectively. For methyl cinnamate, the two substituents (Ph v.s. COOMe) compete at withdrawing electrons from the alkene. The carboxyl is the better electron-withdrawing group, causing the β-carbon to be most electrophilic. Thus, cycloaddition yields the carboxyl group on C-3 and the phenyl group on C-4 regioselectively. Steric effect Steric effects can either cooperate or compete with the aforementioned electronic effects. Sometimes steric effects completely outweighs the electronic preference, giving the opposite regioisomer exclusively. For example, diazomethane generally adds to methyl acrylate to give 3-carboxyl pyrazoline. However, by putting more steric demands into the system, we start to observe the isomeric 4-carboxyl pyrazolines. The ratio of these two regioisomers depends on the steric demands. At the extreme, increasing the size from hydrogen to t-butyl shifts the regioselectivity from 100% 3-carboxyl to 100% 4-carboxyl substitution. Synthetic applications 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions are important ways toward the synthesis of many important 5-membered heterocycles such as triazoles, furans, isoxazoles, pyrrolidines, and others. Additionally, some cycloadducts can be cleaved to reveal the linear skeleton, providing another route toward the synthesis of aliphatic compounds. These reactions are tremendously useful also because they are stereospecific, diastereoselective and regioselective. Several examples are provided below. Nitrile oxides 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition with nitrile oxides is a widely used masked-aldol reaction. Cycloaddition between a nitrile oxide and an alkene yields the cyclic isoxazoline product, whereas the reaction with an alkyne yields the isoxazole. Both isoxazolines and isoxazoles can be cleaved by hydrogenation to reveal aldol-type β-hydroxycarbonyl or Claisen-type β-dicarbonyl products, respectively. Nitrile oxide-alkyne cycloaddition followed by hydrogenation was utilized in the synthesis of Miyakolide as illustrated in the figure below. Carbonyl ylides 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions have emerged as powerful tools in the synthesis of complex cyclic scaffolds and molecules for medicinal, biological, and mechanistic studies. Among them, [3+2] cycloaddition reactions involving carbonyl ylides have extensively been employed to generate oxygen-containing five-membered cyclic molecules. Preparation of carbonyl ylides for 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions Ylides are regarded as positively charged heteroatoms connected to negatively charged carbon atoms, which include ylides of sulfonium, thiocarbonyl, oxonium, nitrogen, and carbonyl. Several methods exist for generating carbonyl ylides, which are necessary intermediates for generating oxygen-containing five-membered ring structures, for [3+2] cycloaddition reactions. Synthesis of carbonyl ylides from diazomethane derivatives by photocatalysis One of the