Chiral Switchable Catalysts for Dynamic Control of Enantioselectivity

Abstract

Among the artificial switchable catalysts, those catalysts whose activity can be switched by an external stimulus, only a few cases offer the possibility to develop an effective chiral switchable system that could selectively accelerate the formation of a given enantiomer in one state, whereas in the other state it prefers accelerating the formation of the opposite enantiomer. Many pharmacological investigations need both enantiomers to study potentially different activities and side effects. Thus, chiral switchable catalysts could be a very important tool to achieve this goal because their use will eliminate the need to have the two enantiomers of a designed catalyst. This perspective summarizes, discusses, and emphasizes important developments in the chiral switchable catalyst area for the dynamic control of enantioselectivity, highlighting their advantages and showing some perspectives of this field that is still in its infancy.