In the last few posts, I have explored the anomeric effect as it occurs at an atom centre X. Here I try to summarise the atoms for which the effect is manifest in crystal structures.

The anomeric effect occurs at 4-coordinate (sp ³ ) carbon centres carrying two oxygen substituents and involves an alignment of a lone electron pair on one oxygen with the adjacent C-O σ*-bond of the other oxygen. Here I explore whether other centres can exhibit the phenomenon.