Gold-Catalyzed Highly Regioselective Coupling Reaction between Alkynes and Aldehydes for the Synthesis of Conjugated Enones

An efficient AuCl3/AgSbF6-catalysed enone synthesis from coupling of alkynes and aldehydes has been presented. The present reaction is very effective, simple and mild and has wide range of substrate scope. Both aryl (electron rich and electron deficient) and aliphatic aldehydes and terminal and internal arylalkynes participated smoothly in the reaction and provided exclusively trans product. This simple reaction can be coupled with other gold catalysed transformations which involve enones as substrates for further development.