Palladium-catalyzed alkene functionalization was discovered more than 60 years ago and is now a commonly used strategy for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and materials. The development of asymmetric variants of this reaction is described in this short review. The review is organized around the mechanistic challenges that have hampered the development of these transformations for various substrate classes, as well as the strategies, ligand classes, and additives that have been introduced to overcome them. New methodologies for Heck, oxidative Heck, dehydrogenative Heck, and Wacker-type reactions are highlighted, with a special focus on the progression from cyclic to acyclic to electronically unbiased olefin substrates.Historical background: Mizoroki-Heck-and Wacker-type chemistry Palladium-catalyzed methodologies are ubiquitous in synthetic chemistry and key to their successful implementation has been obtaining a detailed mechanistic understanding of these reactions. Specifically, the two-electron nature of oxidative addition (see Glossary) and reductive elimination, facile β-hydrogen elimination, and high π-Lewis acidity have enabled the organometallic community to rationally design a myriad of Pd-catalyzed strategies to efficiently build molecular complexity [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The versatility of Pd catalysis has been described in many reviews [9][10][11][12][13][14], but herein we focus on Pd-mediated enantioselective functionalization of alkenes. In particular, this review highlights the different strategies developed to control the regio-and stereoselectivity of the key elementary steps in these processes.The discovery of the Pd(II)-catalyzed water addition to ethylene to give acetaldehyde by researchers in Wacker Chemie in 1959 [15,16] inspired numerous chemists to study the use of transition-metal complexes to catalyze organic transformations. Shortly after, in 1970, the laboratories of Mizoroki and Heck reported the use of Pd(0) complexes to promote olefin arylations and alkylations [17,18]. The general mechanism of Heck-type transformations is outlined in Figure 1 (Key figure), where a Pd(0) complex (A) engages in oxidative addition with an alkenyl or aryl halide to generate Pd(II) intermediate B. Migratory insertion of the alkene into the Pd-C bond forges the new C−C bond and yields Pd-alkyl intermediate C. Subsequently, a β-hydrogen elimination delivers the alkene product 3, and a base-mediated reductive elimination of the Pd-hydride species (D) regenerates the Pd(0) catalyst to restart the cycle. Key to the development of asymmetric variants of this transformation is to favor the β-hydrogen elimination of H b , away from the newly formed stereocenter to render chiral product 3a, over H a , which would deliver achiral product 3b. Although early Heck reaction development attracted the attention of numerous research groups, asymmetric variants of these methodologies remained elusive until 1989, when the groups of Overman and Shibasaki described the use of bisphosphine
HighlightsThe mechanistic rat...