Rationally improved chiral Brønsted acid for catalytic enantioselective allylboration of aldehydes with an expanded reagent scope.

One of the most useful reactions in organic synthesis, the stereocontrolled addition of allylic metal reagents to carbonyl compounds, provides access to enantiomerically enriched homoallylic alcohols related to the acetate, propionate, and other oxygen-containing functionalities present in a large number of biologically active natural products and pharmaceutical drugs. In the search for an ideal carbonyl allylation methodology, the catalytic enantioselective allylboration presents numerous advantages such as a high chemo-, diastereo-, and enantiocontrol with stable and nontoxic pinacol allylic boronates. This article reports a rationally improved diol x SnCl(4) complex as chiral protic acid catalyst, which provides unprecedented levels of enantioselectivity in the catalytic allylation, methallylation, crotylation, and 2-bromoallylation of aliphatic aldehydes. The new diol, p-F-Vivol (4b), enables a more active diol x SnCl(4) catalyst that can compete more effectively with the background uncatalyzed allylboration. The usefulness of this optimized catalytic allylboration methodology was demonstrated with an efficient synthesis of the naturally occurring pyranone (+)-dodoneine and to the preparation of biologically important exomethylene-gamma-lactones.