Recent development in the transition metal-catalyzed cyclization reactions for organic syntheses in the author's laboratories is summarized, which includes (i) novel silylcarbocyclizations (SiCaCs) and carbonylative carbotricyclizations, (ii) intramolecular silylformylations and desymmerization of siloxydiynes by sequential double silylformylation, (iii) efficient total synthesis of (+)-prosopinine, (iv) enantioselective desymmetrization of aminodienes, and (iv) new and efficient routes to 1-azabicyclo[x.y.0]alkane amino acids. All these processes are catalyzed by Rh or Rh-Co complexes, and useful for rapid and efficient construction of a variety of heterocyclic and carbocyclic compounds. Mechanisms of these new carbocyclization and cyclohydrocarbonylation reactions are also discussed.It has been the central focus in modern organic synthesis to develop highly efficient catalytic processes for the syntheses of natural and unnatural compounds of medicinal interest or intermediates useful for functional materials. One of the most attractive approaches to such aims is to apply transition metal-catalyzed cyclization reactions for the transformations of simple starting materials into monocyclic, bicyclic, and polycyclic scaffolds that can be further elaborated into specific targets.This account describes new and useful cyclization processes based on silylcarbocyclization (SiCaC), silylformylation, and cyclohydrocarbonylation reactions, which have recently been developed in these laboratories and will find many applications in organic syntheses.
SILYLCARBOCYCLIZATIONS (SiCaCs)The first silylcarbocyclization was discovered serendipitously during our detailed product analysis of the silylformylation of 1-hexyne catalyzed by Rh and Rh-Co carbonyl clusters, which gave dibutylcyclopentenone by incorporating two molecules of 1-hexyne, one molecule of hydrosilane, and one molecule of CO. Following up this discovery, we have investigated the intramolecular version of this reaction using a variety of 1,6-enynes, which led to the discovery of novel silylcarbocyclization (SiCaC) reaction (eq. 1) [1][2][3]. The SiCaC reaction of 1,6-enynes is catalyzed by Rh 4 (CO) 12 and Rh 2 Co 2 (CO) 12 , *Lecture presented at the