Recent advances in the organocatalytic enantioselective construction of alkynyl-containing tetrasubstituted carbon stereocenters

Abstract

Alkynyl-containing tetrasubstituted carbon stereocenters represent a frequently encountered structural motif in numerous biologically active molecules. Furthermore, the presence of alkynyl-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 the development of several elegant strategies for the construction of this structural motif in an organocatalytic asymmetric fashion. This review summarizes the advances in 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 in this field.