Enantiodivergence by minimal modification of an acyclic chiral secondary aminocatalyst

The development of enantiodivergent catalysis for the preparation of both enantiomers of a chiral compound is of importance in pharmaceutical and bioorganic chemistry. With the design of a class of reactive and stereoselective organocatalysts, acyclic chiral secondary amines, a method for achieving the enantiodivergence is developed simply by changing the secondary N-i-Bu- to N-Me-group within the catalyst architecture while maintaining the same absolute configuration of the catalysts, which modulates the catalyst conformation. This catalyst-controlled enantiodivergent method not only enables challenging asymmetric transformations to occur in an enantiodivergent manner but also features a high level of stereocontrol and broad scope that is demonstrated in eight different reactions (90 examples), all delivering both enantiomers of a range of structurally diverse products including hitherto less accessible, yet important, compounds in good yields with high stereoselectivities. Enantiodivergent methods, which to access both enantiomers of the same compound, are of importance in drug synthesis. Here, the authors show that by simply changing a NiBu- to a NMe-group in readily available amine organocatalysts, high stereocontrol and broad scope are achieved in eight asymmetric reactions.