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Atropisomers hold significant fascination, not only for their prevalence in natural compounds but also for their biological importance and wide‐ranging applications as chiral materials, ligands, and organocatalysts. While biaryl and heterobiaryl atropisomers are commonly studied, the enantioselective synthesis of less abundant heteroatom‐linked non‐biaryl atropisomers presents a formidable challenge in modern organic synthesis. Unlike classical atropisomers, these molecules allow rotation around two bonds, resulting in low barriers to enantiomerization through concerted bond rotations. In recent years the discovery of new configurationally stable rare non‐biaryl scaffolds such as aryl amines, aryl ethers and aryl sulfones as well as innovative methodologies to control their configuration have been disclosed in the literature and constitute the topic of this minireview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non‐covalent interactions play an important role in all sub‐fields of chemistry, including catalysis, where interactions of different natures can work together to improve reactivitiy and selectivity. Several families of molecules that incorporate both hydrogen bond (HB) and halogen bonding (XB) donors have already been studied. However, there is a lack of data on how grafting HB donors to iodoazolium salts could impact their association and reactivity properties. Herein, we disclose the synthesis of a library of iodoazolium salts bearing varied HB donors, along with a study of their physico‐chemical properties using different techniques (X‐ray diffraction, 31P NMR, ITC) and their behavior in catalysis. Even though no clear‐cut evidence of cooperation between XB and HB could be obtained through physico‐chemical evaluations, a iodoazolium salt bearing a urea function displayed better conversion and product selectivity in a Ritter reaction than all other activators lacking one or the other function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four-coordinate organoboron derivatives present interesting chemical, physical, biological, electronical, and optical properties. Given the increasing demand for the synthesis of smart functional materials based on chiral organoboron compounds, the exploration of stereoselective synthesis of boron-stereogenic organo-derivatives is highly desirable. However, the stereoselective construction of organoboron compounds stereogenic at boron has been far less studied than other elements of the main group due to configurational stability concerns. Nowadays, these species are no longer elusive and configurationally stable compounds have been highlighted. The idea is to show the potential of the stereoselective building of the four-coordinate boron centre and encourage future endeavors and developments in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanism of the intramolecular enantioselective rhodium(I)-catalyzed hydroboration of NHC-boranes is investigated by experimental reactivity measurements and molecular electronic structure calculations, within the framework of the Density Functional Theory and the Random Phase Approximation methods. The crucial role of alkene coordination and the origin of enantioselectivity are discussed. Two possible mechanisms are considered, via either prior hydride migratory insertion or boron migratory insertion. The minimum energy computed pathway leads to the enantiomer experimentally observed, therefore supporting the hydride migratory insertion mechanism. Calculations of the final steps of the catalytic cycle, i.e. regeneration of the catalyst and release of the product, give us further insights into the mechanism and rationalize the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a synergistic double catalytic kinetic resolution (DoCKR) as described in this article was successfully applied to racemic acyclic anti-1,3-diols, a common motif in natural products. This process takes advantage of an additive Horeau amplification involving two successive enantioselective organocatalytic acylation reactions, and leads to diesters and recovered diols with high enantiopurities. It was first developed with C2-symmetrical diols and then further extended to non- C2-symmetrical anti diols to prepare useful chiral building blocks. The protocol is highly practical as it only requires 1 mol % of a commercially available organocatalyst and leads to easily separable products. This procedure was applied to the shortest reported total synthesis of (+)-cryptocaryalactone, a natural product with anti-germinative activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review covers recent developments relating to organocatalyzed transformations by chiral isothioureas (ITUs) since their original introduction by Birman in 2006. This class of nucleophilic heterocycles was first involved in anhydride activation in enantioselective acyl transfer reactions, but it was more recently shown that activation of other reagents was possible, considerably enlarging their number of catalytic enantioselective transformations. Four main modes of activation as Lewis bases can currently be listed: (1) acylisothiouronium intermediates involved in acyl transfer, (2) silylisothiouronium species involved in silyl transfer, (3) acylisothiouronium enolates involved in several concerted and formal pericyclic transformations, and (4) α,β-unsaturated acylisothiouronium species involved in domino transformations. This review is organized according to these different modes of activation of chiral isothioureas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A straightforward synthesis of air- and water-stable bis-cationic macrocyclic imidazolylboronium anion receptors is described herein. By taking advantage of the bulky and rigid 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]-nonane (9-BBN) attaching point and a well-designed bis-imidazolylaryl, highly stable dimeric imidazolylboronium macrocycles were synthesized. Additionally, NMR spectroscopy (1H, DOSY, and HOESY), mass spectrometry (MS), and X-ray diffraction studies revealed that these macrocyclic scaffolds can bind several monoanions with high association constants in DMSO, and are particularly sensitive for the MS detection of anions (with concentrations in the n m range). This anion/receptor interaction involves eight C−H binding sites, which include C [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bifunctional Ag(i), Pd(ii), Rh(i), Ru(ii) and Au(i) complexes containing a NHC ligand and a pendant trivalent boron moiety have been synthesized in high yields. Fine-tuned reaction conditions were used to prevent potential ligand self-quenching or polymerization due to the eventual co-existence in situ of free NHC (Lewis base) and boronic ester (Lewis acid) in the same molecule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The symmetry breaking of meso primary diols bearing a tetrahydropyran ring was employed, using catalytic asymmetric acyl transfer, to control all-carbon quaternary stereocenters. The planar chiral Fu DMAP catalyst was used in this reaction to reach a high degree of enantioselectivity (up to 97:3 e.r.) through a synergic effect combining a desymmetrization step and a kinetic resolution. Moreover, a beneficial effect was exhibited by C6F6 solvent, yielding the first example of an organocatalyzed asymmetric acyl transfer. The desymmetrized monoesters were then used to obtain, after a straightforward ring opening sequence, complex polyketide building blocks bearing all-carbon quaternary stereocenters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A focused library of chiral imidazolinium salts functionalized with urea-type hydrogen-bond donor moieties has been prepared from the chiral pool. The corresponding N-heterocyclic carbenes were evaluated as organocatalysts in three enantioselective reactions involving homoenolate intermediates generated from enals. The catalysts proved competent in enantioselective cyclopentannulation and γ-lactonization reactions, a premiere for imidazoline-based NHCs. This work conveys some new ideas and knowledge on the concepts of bifunctional enantioselective organocatalysis applied to NHCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nucleophilic addition of pyridines to benzyne generates zwitterionic adducts that evolve by a rapid intramolecular proton shift to produce the corresponding pyridine carbenes, N-phenyl pyrid-2-ylidenes. In the presence of electrophilic ketones (isatin derivatives), the pyridylidenes can further react by an original bis-arylation reaction of the carbonyl compounds involving a formal pyridine CH bond functionalisation. The overall transformation is an unprecedented three-component reaction featuring a carbene intermediate. The mechanism of this transformation was examined in detail by using both experimental and theoretical approaches. It was found that the generation of N-phenyl pyrid-2-ylidene from pyridine and benzyne is energetically favoured, and that the corresponding carbene dimer can also form easily. Under the three-component reaction conditions, the pyridylidene preferentially adds to the ketone group of the isatin derivative to produce a zwitterionic adduct amenable to an intramolecular aryl transfer reaction by a concerted nucleophilic aromatic substitution. This peculiar reactivity for a carbene was compared to possibly competitive known reactions of stable carbenes with carbonyl compounds, and the reaction was found to be under thermodynamic control. The reported method of generation of N-phenyl pyrid-2-ylidenes and their reactivity with carbonyl compounds unlock new perspectives in organic synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Shimoi-type activation of B-H bond of NHC-boranes by a diphosphane-ligated cationic Rh complex was applied in an unprecedented intramolecular hydroboration reaction of simple olefins. The use of NHC-boranes as hydroborating reagents is still undisclosed due to their nonreactivity toward alkenes which could be explained by the high stability of this complex rendering it unable to provide a "free" borane hydroborating reagent. B-H bond Rh activation of NHC-borane circumvents this limitation and asymmetric Rh-directed anti-Markovnikov boracyclopentannulation reaction led to a library of enantioenriched cyclic boranes in high yield (up to 94%) with high regio- (up to 100%) and enantioselectivity (er up to 99.2:0.8). This new activation mode of NHC-boranes highlights their use in organometallic chemistry and offers a very good approach to access chiral cyclic NHC-boranes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The first examples of assembling monodentate oxazoline donor and acceptor ligands by charge transfer interactions are described to mimic bidentate ligands in asymmetric catalysis. The corresponding copper(II) complexes were used in an enantioselective Diels–Alder reaction and showed very high efficiency, but only moderate stereoselectivity. These complexes were successfully recovered and reused after precipitation in pentane. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Bisabolane derivatives have been synthesized from para-substituted cinnamaldehydes according to a tandem Michael–Wittig–Horner reaction. This sequence was applied to a short access to (+/-)-ar-turmerone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the description of sterically hindered benzophones in its involution to the attributes of rhodium-catalyzed oxidative arylation of aldehydes. It shows that the reaction of aldehyde 1a and potassium aryltrifluoroborate 2a in the presence of 0.25 mol % of rhodium dimer catalyst gave the expected benzophenone 3a in quantitative yield. It also concludes that the reaction provides efficient alternative for the formation of benzophenones.