An Alternative Approach to Aldol Reactions: Gold-Catalyzed Formation of Boron Enolates from Alkynes

摘要

The aldol reaction is one of the most well established and widely used methods for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds. However, without natural substrate bias, the chemoselective formation of an enolate from one carbonyl component in the presence of another is extremely challenging. Therefore, the most commonly employed solution is the use of a preformed enolate or enolate equivalent. A method for the direct generation of an enolate from a non-carbonyl precursor would provide a more elegant approach, but such methods are rare and generally incompatible with the presence of enolizable aldehydes.