Over thirty years ago, James and Young reported the first enantioselective olefin hydroacylation by using rhodium catalysts. This viewpoint highlights the advances in this area, including 4-pentenal cyclisations, medium-ring syntheses, and intermolecular variants.

We report a protocol for the hydroacylation of vinylphenols with aryl, alkenyl, and alkyl aldehydes to form branched products with high selectivity. This cross-coupling yields α-aryl ketones that can be cyclized to benzofurans, and it enables access to eupomatenoid natural products in four steps or less from eugenol. Excellent reactivity and high levels of regioselectivity for the formation of the branched products were observed. We propose that aldehyde decarbonylation is avoided by the use of an anionic directing group on the alkene and a diphosphine ligand with a small bite angle.

The combination of a small-bite-angle diphosphine bis(dicyclohexylphosphino)methane (dcpm) and [Rh(cod)OMe]₂ catalyses the hydroacylation of 2-vinylphenols with a wide range of non-chelating aldehydes. Here we present a detailed experimental study that elucidates the factors contributing to the broad aldehyde scope and high reactivity. A variety of catalytically relevant intermediates were isolated and a [Rh(dcpm)(vinylphenolate)] complex was identified as the major catalytically relevant species. A variety of off-cycle intermediates were also identified that can re-enter the catalytic cycle by substrate- or 1,5-cyclooctadiene-mediated pathways. Saturation kinetics with respect to the 2-vinylphenol were observed, and this may contribute to the high selectivity for hydroacylation over aldehyde decarbonylation. A series of deuterium labelling experiments and Hammett studies support the oxidative addition of Rh to the aldehyde C-H bond as an irreversible and turnover-limiting step. The small bite angle of dcpm is crucial for lowering the barrier of this step and providing excellent reactivity with a variety of aldehydes.

The dehydroformylation of aldehydes to generate olefins occurs during the biosynthesis of various sterols, including cholesterol in humans. Here, we implement a synthetic version that features the transfer of a formyl group and hydride from an aldehyde substrate to a strained olefin acceptor. A Rhodium (Xantphos)(benzoate) catalyst activates aldehyde carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds with high chemoselectivity to trigger carbon-carbon (C-C) bond cleavage and generate olefins at low loadings (0.3 to 2 mole percent) and temperatures (22° to 80°C). This mild protocol can be applied to various natural products and was used to achieve a three-step synthesis of (+)-yohimbenone. A study of the mechanism reveals that the benzoate counterion acts as a proton shuttle to enable transfer hydroformylation.