Highly regioselective ring-opening/cross-metathesis reactions of 2-sulfonylnorbornene derivatives.

Tandem ring-opening/cross-metathesis (ROM/CM) reactions of norbornenes can be a powerful entry into highly substituted organic molecules. However, their utility has been limited largely to symmetrical norbornenes because of the general lack of regioselective variants of these reactions. This manuscript describes our successful attempts to address this issue through the use of a sulfone to direct the ROM/CM reaction of a 7-azanorbornene and a 7-oxanorbornene.