Palladium-catalyzed regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselective benzylic allylation of 2-substituted pyridines.

We report a new method for the highly regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselective palladium-catalyzed allylic alkylation of 2-substituted pyridines that allows for the formation of homoallylic stereocenters containing alkyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and nitrogen substituents. When the reaction is conducted with asymmetric acyclic electrophiles, both linear and branched products may be obtained exclusively by selecting the appropriate regioisomeric starting material and ligand, an example of the "memory effect." Deuterium-labeling studies reveal that though no such phenomenon occurs with racemic cyclic electrophiles, the chiral ligand employed reacts kinetically faster with the enantiomer of the substrate for which it is "matched" and yet eventually converts all "mismatched" substrate to product.