Construction of quaternary stereogenic carbon centers through copper-catalyzed enantioselective allylic cross-coupling with alkylboranes.

A combination of an in situ generated chiral Cu(I) /DTBM-MeO-BIPHEP catalyst system and EtOK enabled the enantioselective SN 2'-type allylic cross-coupling between alkylborane reagents and γ,γ-disubstituted primary allyl chlorides with enantiocontrol at a useful level. The reaction generates a stereogenic quaternary carbon center having three sp(3) -alkyl groups and a vinyl group. This protocol allowed the use of terminal alkenes as nucleophile precursors, thus representing a formal reductive allylic cross-coupling of terminal alkenes. A reaction pathway involving addition/elimination of a neutral alkylcopper(I) species with the allyl chloride substrate is proposed.