Regio- and Enantiospecific Rhodium-Catalyzed Allylic Substitution with an Acyl Anion Equivalent

The construction of enantiomerically enriched acyclic quaternary substituted ketones via the regio- and enantiospecific rhodium-catalyzed allylic alkylation reaction of chiral nonracemic tertiary alcohols with cyanohydrin pronucleophiles is described. This approach provides an alternative method to the α-arylation and vinylation of acyclic disubstituted ketone enolates, which remains a challenging endeavor. The combination of the allylic alkylation with ring-closing metathesis facilitates the preparation of enantiomerically enriched 2,2-disubstituted naphthalene-1-ones, which have proven very difficult to prepare using a more conventional dearomatization strategy.