Enantioselective Pd-Catalyzed Arylation ofN-Boc-Pyrrolidine

Significance

This work represents an easy method for the preparation of enantiopure 2-aryl- and 2-hetarylpyrrolidines. Based on the known sparteine-promoted enantioselective metallation of N-Boc-pyrrolidine, the authors developed an elegant protocol for the transmetallation-cross-coupling sequence, leading to various arylated pyrrolidines without the loss of chirality. Although the configurational stability of secondary alkylzinc species has been proved, this is the first report on the cross-coupling reaction of such species with aryl electrophiles with complete retention of configuration.