Robustness screen in enantioselective catalysis enabled generation of enantioenriched heterocyclic scaffolds in one pot

Abstract

Enantioselective catalysis has emerged as a powerful synthetic paradigm and has accelerated the development of new methods to make diverse chiral molecules. Generally, these reactions are very sensitive to the steric and electronic environment present in the catalyst as well as the substrates. With this scenario, the presence of an additional component in the reaction mixture is expected to add complexity in achieving the enantioselective variants. Herein, we report that various enantioenriched molecules could be obtained from multiple starting materials in one pot. The reaction of aminoaromatics A with alkynols B1, B2, B3…︁Bn with a Au(I)/chiral Brønsted acid catalyst afforded AB1*, AB2*, AB3*…ABn*; while, the reaction of alkynols B with aminoaromatics A1, A2, A3…An under the same reaction conditions gave A1B*, A2B*, A3B*…AnB*.

Keywords: chiral Brönsted acid; enantioselectivity; gold; molecular scaffolds; robustness screen.