Recent updates on vinyl cyclopropanes, aziridines and oxiranes: access to heterocyclic scaffolds

This present review delineates the repertoire of vinyl cyclopropanes and their stuctural analogues to accomplish a wide array of oxa-cycles, aza-cycles, and thia-cycles under transition metal catalysis and metal-free approaches from early 2019 to the present date. The generation of electrophilic π-allyl intermediates and 1–3/1–5-dipolarophile chemistry originating from VCPs are always green, step- and atom-economical and sustainable strategies in comparsion with prefunctionalized and/or C–H activation protocols. Here, the strained ring-system extends its applicability by relieving the strain to undergo a ring-expansion reaction to accomplish 5–9 membered carbo- and heterocyclic systems. The availability of chiral ligands in the ring-expansion reaction of VCPs and their analogues has paved the way to realizing asymmetric synthetic transformations.