Atroposelective carbonylation of aryl iodides with amides: facile synthesis of enantioenriched cyclic and acyclic amides

Axially chiral cyclic and acyclic amides are frequently found in natural products and bioactive molecules, but their versatilely catalytic asymmetric synthesis with high enantioselectivities and good yields has been a formidable challenge. We herein describe an unprecedented palladium-catalyzed asymmetric carbonylation of ArI with carbon monoxide (CO) to atroposelectively elaborate a class of 2-arylisoindoline-1,3-diones and N-acetyl-N-phenyl benzamides in good yields with high enantioselectivities, which represents the first example that inlays the carbonyl groups that is generated from the carbonylation reaction in the axially chiral unit and allows the formation of enantiomorphous 2-arylisoindoline-1,3-diones simply through devising the substitution effect on the aryl iodides.