Chiral ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts can perform asymmetric ring-closing reactions in > or = 90% ee with low catalyst loadings. To illustrate the practicality of these reactions and the products they form, an enantioselective total synthesis of 5-epi-citreoviral was completed by using an asymmetric ring-closing olefin metathesis reaction as a key step early in the synthesis. All of the ...

Catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation of N-Boc-protected pyrroles proceeded with high enantioselectivity by using a ruthenium catalyst modified with a trans-chelating chiral bisphosphine PhTRAP. The ruthenium catalyst prepared from Ru(eta3-methallyl)2(cod) and (S,S)-(R,R)-PhTRAP in the presence of triethylamine was the most enantioselective for the asymmetric hydrogenation of methyl pyrrole-2-carb...

The success of enantioselective olefin metathesis relies on the design of enantioenriched alkylidene complexes capable of transferring stereochemical information from the catalyst structure to the reactants. Cyclometalation of the NHC ligand has proven to be a successful strategy to incorporate stereogenic atoms into the catalyst structure. Enantioenriched complexes incorporating this design el...

Asymmetric hydrogenolysis of racemic tertiary alcohols, 3-substituted 3-hydroxyisoindolin-1-ones, was developed using chiral phosphoric acid as catalyst and a Hantzsch ester as the hydrogen source with up to 95% ee. The reaction process of this asymmetric transfer hydrogenation may occur directly through the acyliminium ion intermediate.

We report a highly selective asymmetric ring-closing ene reaction catalysed by aluminum complexes with chiral BINOL. This reaction yields optically active 6-membered cyclized alcohols from unsaturated aldehydes, with good diastereo- and enantioselectivities. Asymmetric amplification of this reaction was investigated by varying the ee of the BINOL employed in the catalyst.

Asymmetric Michael addition of carbon nucleophiles, nitroalkanes and a β-ketoester, to enones was investigated by using a primary amino acid lithium salt as a catalyst.

The asymmetric Mannich reaction ranks among the most potent enantioselective and diastereoselective C-C-bond forming reactions. In recent years, organocatalysed versions of asymmetric Mannich processes have been increasingly reported and used in a rapidly growing number of applications. This tutorial review provides an overview of the recent history of the asymmetric organocatalysed Mannich rea...

In this chapter the results of kinetic studies of the rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation using monodentate phosphoramidite ligands are described. Together with the data obtained by a number of other techniques a mechanism for the Rhcatalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation with MonoPhosTM is proposed. The formation of the catalyst precursor results in a mixture of diastereomeric Rh-complexes w...

A new asymmetric total synthesis of a phenanthroindolizidine alkaloid (S)-tylophorine is reported, which features a catalytic asymmetric allylation of aldehydes and an unexpected one-pot DMAP promoted isocyanate formation and Lewis acid catalyzed intramolecular cyclization reaction. In addition, White's direct C-H oxidation catalyst system converting monosubstituted olefins to linear allylic ac...

In this communication, we present a regioselectivity switch for the chiral amine-catalysed asymmetric addition of aldehydes to reactive enals to afford either aldol adducts or conjugate adducts in a stereoselective fashion. The unprecedented asymmetric aldol reaction of aldehydes with enals was realized by the use of a diarylprolinol catalyst, giving synthetically useful and important chiral al...