Nickel-catalyzed alkenylboration of alkenylarenes to access homoallylic boronic esters

A practical nickel-catalyzed highly selective alkenylboration of alkenylarenes has been developed. Under mild reaction conditions, a series of structurally interesting homoallylic boronic esters can be accessed with excellent chemo- and regio-selectivity. The synthetic application of this methodology was demonstrated by further transformations of homoallylic boronic esters which could afford several valuable building blocks. Furthermore, the mechanism of this transformation was probed by control experiments.