Asymmetric allylic alkylation, an enabling methodology.

The diversity of mechanisms for enantiodiscrimination and of bond types that can be formed make Pd-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation a powerful key step for simplification of synthetic strategy to complex molecular targets. Using a wide range of different classes of compounds including alkaloids, polyhydrofurans, nucleosides and carbanucleosides, cyclohexitols and cyclopentitols, chromanes, cyclopentanoids, amino acids, barbiturates, etc., novel synthetic strategies emerge that provide short efficient asymmetric syntheses.