Propargylic alcohols have been known as useful substrates in a wide range of asymmetric reactions. Particularly, the chiral phosphoric acids (CPAs) catalyzed reactions of functionalized propargylic alcohols opened a robust...

Organocatalytic enantioselective construction of chiral spiro N,N-acetal carbon stereocenters and axially chiral 3-arylindoles has been achieved via a chiral phosphoric acid (CPA)-catalyzed (3+2) annulation of α-(3-isoindolinonyl) propargylic alcohols with 1-(3-indolyl)naphthalen-2-ols,...

A chiral phosphoric acid catalyzed regio-and enantioselective reaction between 1-acylamino-3-arylprop-2-yn-1-ols and isoxazol-5-ones has been developed for the first time. With the established protocol, N-alkylation of isoxazol-5-ones was achieved, affording enantioenriched N,N-acetals in 74-99 % yield with 72-88 % ee.

Catalytic enantioselective construction of optically active tetraarylmethanes remains a challenging issue in the field of asymmetric synthesis because of the overwhelming steric hindrance and formidable stereocontrol that existed in construction of the all-aryl-substituted quaternary carbon stereocenter. Here, we reported an organocatalytic asymmetric synthesis of chiral tetraarylmethanes from racemic tertiary alcohols. With the aid of a chiral phosphoric acid catalyst, 6methylenenaphthalen-2(6H)-ones were generated in situ from 6-(hydroxydiarylmethyl)naphthalen-2-ols, followed by stereoselective 1,8conjugate addition to afford the corresponding tetraarylmethanes in high to excellent yields with high enantioselectivities. Furthermore, the scope of tertiary alcohols has been successfully enlarged to 6-(hydroxydiphenylmethyl)naphthalen-2-amines. Notably, it is the first time to use 2-naphthol/naphthalen-2-amine unit as the auxiliary group to in situ generate α,β,γ,δ,ε,ζ-conjugate systems, which have been successfully involved in organocatalytic remote stereocontrolled 1,8-conjugate addition reactions. Particularly, organocatalytic stereoconvergent formal nucleophilic substitution reaction of triarylmethanols has been achieved for the asymmetric construction of chiral tetraarylmethanes. In addition, DFT calculations have been applied to provide guidance for the design of additional tertiary alcohols and understand the origin of stereoselectivity.