Ligand-Enabled Gold-Catalyzed C(sp2)–O Cross-Coupling Reactions

Reported herein is a ligand-enabled gold-catalyzed C(sp2)–O cross-coupling reaction of aryl iodides and aliphatic alcohols. The synthesis of a variety of aryl alkyl ethers including complex biomolecules and various medicinally relevant motifs has been achieved to demonstrate the usefulness of the method. The importance of gold catalysis has been highlighted by overcoming the selectivity issues that are in general observed for C–O cross-coupling reactions when other transition metals are used as catalysts.