A ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric arylation of aliphatic aldehydes and α-ketoesters with arylboronic acids has been developed, giving chiral alkyl(aryl)methanols and α-hydroxy esters in good yields. The use of a chiral bidentate phosphoramidite ligand (Me-BIPAM) achieved excellent enantioselectivities.

A highly enantioselective Michael addition of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds to nitroalkenes has been developed that employs a newly developed Ni(II)-(bis)diamine based catalyst. The reaction scope includes substituted and unsubstituted malonates, beta-ketoesters, and nitroalkenes bearing aromatic and aliphatic residues. Ease of synthesis of this complex is noteworthy.

A variety of chiral N-phosphinyl α-imino esters have been synthesized for the first time from ketoesters and phosphinylamide, which were then reduced by L-selectride to give the corresponding N-phosphinyl-protected α-amino esters. The reduction proceeded very well with excellent chemical yields (88-98%) as well as high diastereoselectivities (96:4 to 99:1). Some of these products could be obtai...

N-Substituted α-amino esters are widely used as chiral intermediates in a range of pharmaceuticals. Here we report the enantioselective biocatalyic synthesis N-substituted through direct reductive coupling α-ketoesters and amines employing sequence diverse metagenomic imine reductases (IREDs). Both enantiomers were obtained with high conversion excellent enantioselectivity under mild reaction c...