Gold-Catalyzed Cycloisomerizations of 1,n-Diyne Carbonates and Esters

Driven by the ever-growing need for efficient methods to prepare synthetically valuable complex molecules, homogeneous gold catalysis has emerged as an invaluable addition in the organic chemist's toolbox to achieve such goals. Within this field of catalysis, this review focuses on the contributions made toward the construction of core structural scaffolds found in bioactive natural products and pharmaceutical compounds from gold-catalyzed reactions of 1,n-diyne carbonates and esters. It covers the advances made through exploiting the reactivity of the substrate class triggered by an initial 1,2- or 1,3-acyloxy migration of the propargyl motif as well as one rare example of a concerted double cyclization pathway.