Catalytic asymmetric dearomatization (CADA) reaction-enabled total synthesis of indole-based natural products

Catalytic asymmetric dearomatization (CADA) reactions have witnessed considerable development in recent years. As the most extensively studied sub-branch, asymmetric dearomatization reactions of indole derivatives have attracted particular interest from the synthetic organic community since the molecular complexity can be rapidly enhanced with this method and the asymmetric total synthesis of a series of alkaloid natural products may be achieved with this strategy. In this review, we present the recent contributions in this dynamic area. The synthetic details are documented according to their different dearomative cyclization strategies.