Copper-Catalyzed Enantioselective Allylboration of Alkynes: Synthesis of Highly Versatile Multifunctional Building Blocks

The first copper-catalyzed enantioselective allylboration of alkynes is reported. The method employs a multitasking chiral NHC-Cu catalyst and provides access to densely functionalized molecules from simple starting materials with excellent levels of chemo-, regio-, and enantioselectivity. These multifunctional products display highly versatile reactivity as shown by the synthesis of a variety of non-racemic molecular scaffolds. DFT calculations were conducted to gain insight into the high selectivity levels of this catalytic process.