Effect of substituent structure on pyrimidine electrophilic substitution: a rebuttal

The report about a series of unexpected and obscure effects influencing the electrophilic nitrosation of activated pyrimidines (Tetrahedron 2007, 63, 5394) was shown to be erroneous. Instead of electrophilic substitution at position 5 of the pyrimidine ring, N-nitrosation of the secondary amino group in the 4-position of the pyrimidine ring took place. Moreover it was shown that the synthetic sequence for the preparation of purines is also incorrect.