Enantiodivergent synthesis of tricyclic chromans: Remote nucleophilic groups switch selectivity in catalytic asymmetric cascade reactions of trifunctional substrates

Abstract

Abstract An efficient and unified approach to the enantioselective synthesis of two important yet challenging classes of tricyclic chroman scaffolds by site-selective organocatalytic asymmetric cascade reactions of newly designed phenol-based trifunctional substrates bearing two reactive nucleophilic groups is described. The enantioselectivities of this reaction can be switched by altering the remote nucleophilic groups of the substrates.