Palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation of meso- and dl-1,2-divinylethylene carbonate.

The palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation of a 1:1 mixture of dl- and meso-1,2-divinylethylene carbonate is reported. For the first time, both the ionization and nucleophilic addition steps of the catalytic cycle act as enantiodiscriminating steps to give a single product in high enantiomeric excess. The reactions proceed in >98% ee to efficiently generate useful chiral building blocks from acrolein. The absolute and relative configurations of iso-cladospolide B and 11-epi-iso-cladospolide B were verified by total synthesis, solving an apparent discrepancy in the literature.