The Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction has emerged as one of the most powerful methods for the construction of carbon-carbon bonds. Though most widely utilized for the synthesis of sp-sp linkages, the use of this reaction to form stereochemistry-bearing sp-sp bonds has received widespread attention over the past decade. This Perspective highlights approaches to the synthesis of enantioenriched molecules via the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction. Particular focus is placed on the use of enantiomerically enriched organoboron compounds as coupling partners in stereospecific processes, as well as the development of enantioconvergent and group-selective reactions. In addition, progress in the development of chemoselective, iterative cross-coupling methods will be discussed.

The Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling is one of the most often utilized reactions in the synthesis of pharmaceutical compounds and conjugated materials. In its most common form, the reaction joins two sp2-functionalized carbon atoms to make a biaryl or diene/polyene unit. These substructures are widely found in natural products and small molecules and thus the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling has been proposed as the key reaction for the automated assembly of such molecules, using protecting group chemistry to affect iterative coupling. We present herein, a significant advance in this approach, in which multiply functionalized cross-coupling partners can be employed in iterative coupling without the use of protecting groups. To accomplish this, the orthogonal reactivity of different boron substituents towards the boron-to-palladium transmetalation reaction is exploited. The approach is illustrated in the preparation of chiral enantioenriched compounds, which are known to be privileged structures in active pharmaceutical compounds.

Boron-containing heterocycles are important in a variety of applications from drug discovery to materials science; therefore a clear understanding of their structure and reactivity is desirable to optimize these functions. Although the boranol (B−OH) unit of boronic acids behaves as a Lewis acid to form a tetravalent trihydroxyborate conjugate base, it has been proposed that pseudoaromatic hemiboronic acids may possess sufficient aromatic character to act as Brønsted acids and form a boron oxy conjugate base, thereby avoiding the disruption of ring aromaticity that would occur with a tetravalent boronate anion. Until now no firm evidence existed to ascertain the structure of the conjugate base and the aromatic character of the boron-containing ring of hemiboronic "naphthoid" isosteres. Here, these questions are addressed with a combination of experimental, spectroscopic, X-ray crystallographic, and computational studies of a series of model benzoxazaborine and benzodiazaborine naphthoids. Although these hemiboronic heterocycles are unambiguously shown to behave as Lewis acids in aqueous solutions, boraza derivatives possess partial aromaticity provided their nitrogen lone electron pair is sufficiently available to participate in extended delocalization. As demonstrated by dynamic exchange and crossover experiments, these heterocycles are stable in neutral aqueous medium, and their measured pK a values are consistent with the ability of the endocyclic heteroatom substituent to stabilize a partial negative charge in the conjugate base. Altogether, this study corrects previous inaccuracies and provides conclusions regarding the properties of these compounds that are important toward the methodical application of hemiboronic and other boron heterocycles in catalysis, bioconjugation, and medicinal chemistry.

The combination of a boronic acid catalyst with perfluoropinacol as a co-catalyst improves the scope of Friedel–Crafts benzylations of arenes with electronically deactivated primary and secondary benzylic alcohols.