Chemo- and Regioselectivity-Tunable Pd-Catalyzed Allylic Alkylation of Imines

alpha-Carbanions of cyclic and acyclic imines have been successfully applied as nucleophiles in the Pd-catalyzed allylic alkylation reaction. Tuning of chemo- and regioselectivity has been realized by using t-BuOK/THF and LDA/toluene to give branched and linear products, respectively, with high regio- and diastereoselectivities. A plausible mechanism is proposed on the basis of the experimental results and DFT calculations.