Natural Products as Inspiration for Reaction Development: Catalytic Enantioselective Decarboxylative Reactions of Prochiral Enolate Equivalents

Abstract

This account describes the circumstances leading to our group’s innovations in the area of decarboxylative asymmetric allylic alkylation reactions and the initial discovery of palladium phosphinooxazoline complexes as efficient enantioselective catalysts. This chapter also chronicles the growth of the methodology to include several substrate classes, the expansion of the project into several other reaction manifolds, and the use of these reactions in natural product synthesis. Finally, important contributions from other research groups involving related methods or products similar to the α-quaternary products that are the focus of our studies, as well as future directions for asymmetric alkylation reactions, are discussed.