Gold-catalyzed regioselective synthesis of 2- and 3-alkynyl furans.

Furans are omnipresent in synthetic bioactive compounds, natural products and innovative organic materials (Figure 1). They also give access to equally important tetrahydrofurans via reduction or dihydropyrans via oxidation. It is consequently not surprising that the development of new methods to synthesize and functionalize furans is an area of intense research in modern organic chemistry. In particular, direct metal-catalyzed methods based on C-H functionalization or domino cyclization reactions constitute promising efficient approaches.