Phosphate esters and anhydrides--recent strategies targeting nature's favoured modifications.

Esters and anhydrides of phosphoric acid are essential in biology. It is very difficult to identify processes in life that do not involve these modifications and their transformation at some point. Consequently, phosphorylation chemistry is an essential methodology with significant impact on the biological sciences. This perspective gives an overview of some very recent achievements in synthetic phosphorylation chemistry and aims at identifying challenges that lie ahead.