Gold-catalyzed hydroarylation reactions: a comprehensive overview

The hydroarylation of alkynes, alkenes, and allenes is a cost-effective and efficient way to incorporate unsaturated moieties into aromatic substrates. This review focuses on gold-catalyzed hydroarylation, which produces aromatic alkenes, diaryl-alkanes, heterocycles, carbocycles, and arylbutadienes by directly functionalizing C-H bonds. Without the need for prefunctionalization, direct functionalization of aromatic C-H bonds with unsaturated moieties (alkyne, alkene, allene) provides an efficient synthetic strategy with fewer reaction steps. This review offers an overview of the recently developed hydroarylation processes catalyzed by gold. Mechanisms of hydroarylation via alkyne, alkene, allene, and arene activation receive special attention.