Regiocontrolled palladium-catalyzed arylative cyclizations of alkynols.

Tuning the reactivity of arylpalladium intermediates enables control of catalytic arylative 5-exo and 6-endo cyclizations of alkynols. The two modes of cyclizations represent a rare example of controllable, regioselective difunctionalization of alkynes. The cyclizations are useful in offering a divergent synthesis of oxygen-containing heterocycles, which is of synthetic use for further derivatization. Formal synthesis of an hNK-1 receptor antagonist also showcases the utility of our arylative cyclization.