Gold(i)-catalyzed cycloisomerization of alcohol or amine tethered-vinylidenecyclopropanes providing access to morpholine, piperazine or oxazepane derivatives: a carbene versus non-carbene process

A gold(i)-catalyzed adjustable intramolecular cyclization of alcohol or amine tethered-vinylidenecyclopropanes (VDCPs).

Stereospecific Synthesis of Enantioenriched Alkylidenecyclobutanones via Formal Vinylidene Insertion into Cyclopropanone Equivalents

1-Sulfonylcyclopropanols are employed here as efficient cyclopropanone equivalents in a formal vinylidene insertion process, providing the first general synthetic route to enantioenriched alkylidenecyclobutanones. The addition of an alkenyl-Grignard reagent leads to an alkenylcyclopropanol capable of electrophilic activation by N-bromosuccinimide, triggering a regio- and stereospecific 1,2-migration and affording alkylidenecyclobutanones after elimination. Activation of the intermediate with other electrophiles such as HCl or mCPBA leads to the formation of various chiral cyclobutanones and γ-lactones via alternative pathways.

Gold-Catalyzed Synthesis of Small Rings

Three- and four-membered rings, widespread motifs in nature and medicinal chemistry, have fascinated chemists ever since their discovery. However, due to energetic considerations, small rings are often difficult to assemble. In this regard, homogeneous gold catalysis has emerged as a powerful tool to construct these highly strained carbocycles. This review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of all the major advances and discoveries made in the gold-catalyzed synthesis of cyclopropanes, cyclopropenes, cyclobutanes, cyclobutenes, and their corresponding heterocyclic or heterosubstituted analogs.

Gold-Catalyzed Synthetic Strategies towards Four-Carbon Ring Systems

Four carbon ring systems are frequently present in natural products with remarkable biological activities such as terpenoids, alkaloids, and steroids. The development of new strategies for the assembly of these structures in a rapid and efficient manner has attracted the interest of synthetic chemists for a long time. The current research is focused mainly on the development of synthetic methods that can be performed under mild reaction conditions with a high tolerance to functional groups. In recent years, gold complexes have turned into excellent candidates for this aim, owing to their high reactivity, and are thus capable of promoting a wide range of transformations under mild conditions. Their remarkable efficiency has been thoroughly demonstrated in the synthesis of complex organic molecules from simple starting materials. This review summarizes the main synthetic strategies described for gold-catalyzed four-carbon ring formation, as well as their application in the synthesis of natural products.

Recent Advances in Transition-Metal-Catalyzed/Mediated Transformations of Vinylidenecyclopropanes

Vinylidenecyclopropanes (VDCPs), having an allene moiety connected to a highly strained cyclopropyl group, have attracted a substantial amount of attention since they are fascinating building blocks for organic synthesis. During recent years, the reactions of VDCPs in the presence of a Lewis acid or a Brønsted acid and those induced by heat or light have experienced significant advancements due to the unique structural and electronic properties of VDCPs. Transition-metal-catalyzed reactions of VDCPs were not intensely investigated until the last 5 years. Recently, significant progress has been made in transition-metal-catalyzed transformations of VDCPs, and they have emerged as a new direction for the chemistry of strained small rings, especially when new types of functionalized vinylidenecyclopropanes (FVDCPs) are used as substrates. To date, many interesting transformations have been explored using these novel VDCPs under the catalysis of transition metals, such as gold, palladium, or rhodium, and various novel and useful heterocyclic or polycyclic compounds have been generated. These new findings have enriched the chemistry of strained small carbocycles. This Account will describe the transition-metal-catalyzed transformations of VDCPs recently developed in our laboratory and by other groups. The chemistry of Au-catalyzed VDCPs has been enriched and extensively developed by our group. In this respect, a new process for generating gold carbenes from VDCPs has been disclosed. The reactivity of these new gold carbenoid species was fully investigated, and many novel reaction modes based on these new gold carbenoid species were explored, including oxidation reactions, intramolecular cyclopropanations, C(sp³)-H bond functionalizations, and C-O bond cleavage reactions. Rh-catalyzed reactions of VDCPs are another key field of transition-metal-catalyzed reactions of VDCPs. In particular, rhodium-catalyzed cycloadditions, Pauson-Khand reactions, and C-H bond activations of FVDCPs have been explored in detail by our group. A new trimethylenemethane rhodium (TMM-Rh) complex generated from VDCPs was discovered and utilized as an electrophilic Rh-π-allyl precursor. Moreover, some unprecedented highly regio- and enantioselective asymmetric allylic substitutions via this novel TMM-Rh complex were developed with different kinds of nucleophiles. This Account will also summarize the recent advances in palladium-, copper-, and iron-catalyzed cycloisomerization reactions of VDCPs reported by our group and others. These reactions always afford the desired products with excellent chemo-, regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivities, which will make them highly valuable for the synthesis of key scaffolds in natural products and pharmaceutical molecules in the future.

Accessing alternative reaction pathways of the intermolecular condensation between homo-propargyl alcohols and terminal alkynes through divergent gold catalysis

An intermolecular condensation of alkynols and terminal alkynes is reported. Using IPrAuNTf2, an efficient Au-catalyzed cyclization-alkynylation strategy furnishes (2-arylalkynyl) cyclic ethers in moderate to excellent yields (up to 94%). This strategy is extended to the synthesis of functionalized 2,3-dihydrooxepines via the sequential Au-catalyzed ring expansion of the cyclic ether substrates.

Enantioselective gold(i)-catalyzed rearrangement of cyclopropyl-substituted 1,6-enynes into 2-oxocyclobutyl-cyclopentanes

A gold(i)-catalyzed cycloisomerization/ring expansion sequence allows the highly enantioselective synthesis of 2-oxocyclobutylcyclopentane derivatives from cyclopropyl-substituted enynes (up to 99% ee).

Gold carbenes, gold-stabilized carbocations, and cationic intermediates relevant to gold-catalysed enyne cycloaddition

Cationic gold complexes in which gold is bound to a formally divalent carbon atom, typically formulated as gold carbenes or α-metallocarbenium ions, have been widely invoked in a range of gold-catalyzed transformations, most notably in the gold-catalyzed cycloisomerization of 1,n-enynes. Although the existence of gold carbene complexes as intermediates in gold-catalyzed transformations is supported by a wealth of indirect experimental data and by computation, until recently no examples of cationic gold carbenes/α-metallocarbenium ions had been synthesized nor had any cationic intermediates generated via gold-catalyzed enyne cycloaddition been directly observed. Largely for this reason, there has been considerable debate regarding the electronic structure of these cationic complexes, in particular the relative contributions of the carbene (LAu(+)[double bond, length as m-dash]CR2) and α-metallocarbenium (LAu-CR2(+)) forms, which is intimately related to the extent of d → p backbonding from gold to the C1 carbon atom. However, over the past ∼ seven years, a number of cationic gold carbene complexes have been synthesized in solution and generated in the gas phase and cationic intermediates have been directly observed in the gold-catalyzed cycloaddition of enynes. Together, these advances provide insight into the nature and electronic structure of gold carbene/α-metallocarbenium complexes and the cationic intermediates generated via gold-catalyzed enyne cycloaddition. Herein we review recent advances in this area.

Gold-Catalyzed Oxidation of Propargylic Ethers with Internal C-C Triple Bonds: Impressive Regioselectivity Enabled by Inductive Effect

Inductive perturbations of C-C triple bonds are shown to dictate the regiochemistry of gold-catalyzed oxidation of internal C-C triple bonds in the cases of propargylic ethers, resulting in highly regioselective formation of β-alkoxy-α,β-unsaturated ketones (up to >50/1 selectivity) via α-oxo gold carbene intermediates. Ethers derived from primary propargylic alcohols can be reliably transformed in good yields, and various functional groups are tolerated. With substrates derived from secondary propargylic alcohols, the development of a new P,N-bidentate ligand enables the minimization of competing alkyl group migration to the gold carbene center over the desired hydride migration; the preferred migration of a phenyl group, however, results in efficient formation of a α-phenyl-β-alkoxy-α,β-unsaturated ketone. These results further advance the surrogacy of a propargyl moiety to synthetically versatile enone function with reliable and readily predictable regioselectivity.

Gold-catalyzed tandem reactions of methylenecyclopropanes and vinylidenecyclopropanes

Gold catalysis is often the key step in the synthesis of natural products, and is a powerful tool for tandem or domino reaction processes. Both gold salts and complexes are among the most powerful soft Lewis acids for electrophilic activation of carbon-carbon multiple bonds toward a variety of nucleophiles. The core of these reactions relies on the interaction between gold catalysts and π-bonds of alkenes, alkynes, and allenes. Activation of functional groups by gold complexes provides a useful and important method for facilitating many different organic transformations with high atom efficiency. Although they are highly strained, methylenecyclopropanes (MCPs) and vinylidenecyclopropanes (VDCPs) are readily accessible molecules that have served as useful building blocks in organic synthesis. Because of their unique structural and electronic properties, significant developments have been made in the presence of transition metal catalysts such as nickel, rhodium, palladium, and ruthenium during the past decades. However, less attention has been paid to the gold-catalyzed chemistry of MCPs and VDCPs. In this Account, we describe gold-catalyzed chemical transformations of MCPs and VDCPs developed both in our laboratory and by other researchers. Chemists have demonstrated that MCPs and VDCPs have amphiphilic properties. When MCPs or VDCPs are activated by a gold catalyst, subsequent nucleophilic attack by other reagents or ring-opening (ring-expansion) of the cyclopropane moiety will occur. However, the C-C double bonds of MCPs and VDCPs can also serve as nucleophilic reagents while more electrophilic reagents are present and activated by gold catalyst, and then further cascade reactions take place as triggered by the release of ring strain of cyclopropane. Based on this strategy, both our group and others have found some interesting gold-catalyzed transformations in recent years. These transformations of MCPs and VDCPs can produce a variety of polycyclic and heterocyclic structures, containing different sized skeletons. Moreover, we have carried out some isotopic labeling experiments and computational studies for mechanistic investigation. These reactions always give the desired products with high level control of chemo-, regio-, and diastereoselectivities, making them highly valuable for the synthesis of natural products and to the pharmaceutical industry and medicine in general.

A Non-Diazo Strategy to Cyclopropanation via Oxidatively Generated Gold Carbene: the Benefit of A Conformationally Rigid P,N-Bidentate Ligand

By utilizing a conformationally rigid P,N-bidentate ligand, highly efficient intramolecular cyclopropanation reactions using flexible and electronically neutral terminal alkyne substrates are realized.

Optimizing P,N-bidentate ligands for oxidative gold catalysis: efficient intermolecular trapping of α-oxo gold carbenes by carboxylic acids

Steric Bulk or Conformation Control ? Optimization of P,N -bidentate ligands reveals the importance of conformation control in the development of highly efficient intermolecular trapping of reactive α-oxo gold carbene intermediates. While a pendant piperidine ring offers suitable steric bulk, fixing its conformation to provide better shielding to the highly electrophilic carbene center turned out to be crucial for the excellent reaction efficiency. A generally highly efficient and broadly applicable synthesis of carboxymethyl ketones from readily available carboxylic acids and terminal alkynes is developed under exceptionally mild reaction conditions.