Recent Advances in Organocatalytic Enantioselective Construction of Alkynyl-Containing Tetrasubstituted Carbon Stereocenters

Abstract

Alkynyl-containing tetrasubstituted carbon stereocenter represents a frequently encountered structural motif in a series of biologically active molecules. Furthermore, the presence of alkyne-containing tetrasubstituted carbon stereocenters in a molecule offers a plethora of opportunities for further synthetic manipulation to generate molecular diversity. The past two decades have witnessed several elegant strategies being established for the construction of this structural motif in an organocatalytic asymmetric fashion. This review summarizes the advances on this topic (mainly from 2010 to 2025), discusses the mechanism, synthetic applications and advantages and limitations of these catalytic reactions, and outlines the challenges and opportunities of this field.