Selective construction of carbocyclic eight-membered rings by ring-closing metathesis of acyclic precursors.

Although the efficient preparation of cyclooctanoids has remained a long-standing objective, a real breakthrough was possible only relatively recently with the development of more specific reagents and by the development of new reactions. The direct construction of carbocyclic eight-membered rings from acyclic precursors is still a challenge, mainly because of unfavorable entropic and enthalpic factors that preclude ring formation. This Minireview describes the utilization of ring-closing metathesis (RCM) as a new approach to synthesize cyclooctanoids.