Issue 29, 2023

A general catalytic synthetic strategy for highly strained methylenecyclobutanes and spiromethylenecyclobutanes

Abstract

Highly strained methylenecyclobutanes (MCBs) are intriguing scaffolds in synthetic chemistry and drug discovery, but there is no such strategy that enables the synthesis of structurally diverse MCBs with defined stereochemistry. We report a general synthetic strategy for (boromethylene)cyclobutanes (BMCBs) and spiro-BMCBs by a challenging Cu-catalyzed highly chemo-, stereo-, and regioselective borylative cyclization of aliphatic alkynes. This strategy not only enables the installation of various functionalities at each site on the MCB skeleton with unambiguous stereochemistry but also introduces a versatile boromethylene unit that is readily transformable to a wide range of new functional groups; these features significantly expand the structural diversity of MCBs and are particularly valuable in drug discovery. The concise and divergent total syntheses of four cyclobutane-containing natural products were achieved from one common BMCB obtained by this strategy. The origin of the high regioselectivity in the borylcupration of alkynes and the high efficiency of the strained ring cyclization was also studied.

Graphical abstract: A general catalytic synthetic strategy for highly strained methylenecyclobutanes and spiromethylenecyclobutanes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
28 Feb 2023
Accepted
09 Jun 2023
First published
09 Jun 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 7897-7904

A general catalytic synthetic strategy for highly strained methylenecyclobutanes and spiromethylenecyclobutanes

H. Zhao, Y. Lin, M. Jiang and B. Su, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 7897 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC01103H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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