Enantioselective synthesis of bicyclic compounds via catalytic 1,4-addition-ring closing metathesis

Abstract

A novel three step asymmetric annulation procedure comprises a tandem catalytic enantioselective 1,4-addition-allylic substitution, Grignard addition and ring closing metathesis (RCM) sequence to provide [6,6], [7,6], [8,6] and [6,7] bicyclic products with ee’s of 93–97% in which the size of both rings can easily be varied independent of each other.