Organic Reactions, Volume 76

Volume 76 in the venerable <i>Organic Reactions</i> series comprises three chapters that cover the ever-increasing emphasis of transition metal catalysis in organic synthesis. These three chapters represent some of the most important transformations that enable the construction of carbon-carbon bonds, heterocycles and carbon-heteratom bonds. This volume features a comprehensive treatment of transition metal (palladium, nickel, copper) catalyzed a-arylation of enolates derived from many common functional groups such as ketones, aldehydes, esters and nitriles (Prim, Marque, Gaucher, Campagne) including enantioselective variants; palladium catalyzed cyclization to form indoles (Cacchi, Fabrizi, Goggiamani) one of the most prevalent and important classes of heterocycles in natural products and pharmaceutical agents; and an overview of a newly developed dihydroxylation reaction of alkenes (Donohoe, Bataille, Innocenti) that uses hydrogen bonding interactions to direct the delivery of an osmium catalyst with high selectivity. As with all <i>Organic Reactions</i> chapters, these reviews emphasize the preparative aspects of the featured transformation and contain comprehensive compilations of all known examples in the tables.