A Supramolecular Chiral Auxiliary Approach: "Remote Control" of Stereochemistry at a Hierarchically Assembled Dimeric Helicate.

Dimeric hierarchically-assembled titanium(IV) helicates are in solvent-dependent equilibrium with the corresponding monomers. Statistically formed mixtures of such complexes bearing chiral stereocontrolling ligands and achiral diene-substituted ligands show high diastereoselectivity and reasonable enantioselectivity in the Diels-Alder reaction with maleimides if the reaction proceeds with the dimer but not with the monomer. Thus, solvent dependent switching between the monomer and dimer enables on/off switching of the enantioselectivity.