Gold catalysis: recent developments and future trends.

The field of homogeneous gold catalysis has developed exponentially over the past ten years. Even if the array of gold-mediated transformations is extremely broad, a common feature stems from the ability of gold to activate unsaturated moieties due to the strong relativistic effects governing its coordination behavior. Starting with a short historical perspective, this review compiles the recent advances in two fundamental areas: first, the rearrangement of propargylic carboxylates and second, ring-expansion processes, both topics of interest in our research group at the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Zurich.