Remote control over both site-selectivity and atroposelectivity of Suzuki–Miyaura coupling through distal ionic interactions

Enzymes harness an array of non-covalent interactions to recognize, pre-organize and thereby execute site-selective and stereoselective transformations with unparalleled level of precision. It is a synthetic chemists’ dream to design synthetic catalysts that rival that of enzymes. Particularly, ionic substrate-catalyst interactions provide an attractive solution for remote control because of their inherent low directionality as compared to other non-covalent interactions. In this study, we demonstrate the use of a chiral ionic ligand to facilitate both site-selectivity and enantioselectivity through electrostatic steering, thereby realizing an ionic-directed remote meta-selective atroposelective Suzuki–Miyaura coupling.