Thioesters are important class of organosulfur compounds that play a fundamental role in the construction of pharmaceutical, biological, industrial and natural products. In this respect, thioesters synthesis is one of the most important tasks in organosulfur chemistry. The esterification of thiols is the best and most common strategy for the synthesis of thioesters. During the last decade (from 2005 to 2015), the application of a diverse range of reagents as activating or promoter agents for the acylation of thiols in order to synthesize thioesters have been investigated by various research teams. In this review, we have summarized and studied recently reported synthetic protocols in the arena of acylation of thiols.
