A Chiral Electrophilic Selenium Catalyst for Highly Enantioselective Oxidative Cyclization

Chiral electrophilic
selenium catalysts have been applied to catalytic
asymmetric transformations of alkenes over the past two decades. However,
highly enantioselective reactions with a broad substrate scope have
not yet been developed. We report the first successful example of
this reaction employing a catalyst based on a rigid indanol scaffold,
which can be easily synthesized from a commercially available indanone.
The reaction efficiently converts β,γ-unsaturated carboxylic
acids into various enantioenriched γ-butenolides under mild
conditions.