2,4-Oxazole is an important structural motif in various natural products. An efficient modular synthesis of this structure is achieved via a [3+2] annulation between a terminal alkyne and a carboxamide by using a gold-catalyzed oxidation strategy. The postulated reactive intermediate, a terminal α-oxo gold carbene, previously known to be highly electrophilic and hence impropable to be trapped by stoichiometric external nucleophiles, is coerced to react smoothly with a carboxamide en route to the oxazole ring by a P,N- or P,S-bidentate ligand such as Mor-DalPhos; in stark contrast, often used ligands including monodentate phosphines and NHCs are totally ineffective. The role of these bidentate phosphines in this reaction is attributed to the formation of a tricoordinated gold carbene intermediate, which is less electrophilic and hence more chemoselective when reacting with nucleophiles. The success in using bidentate phosphine ligands to temper the reactivities of in-situ generated gold carbenes would likely open many new opportunities to apply the oxidative gold catalysis to the development of novel methods, and the implication of tricoordinated gold intermediates in homogeneous gold catalysis should stimulate further advance in gold catalysis.

Only two steps? Chroman-3-ones are important intermediates for organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. However, their syntheses require multiple steps and are not efficient. By using gold-catalyzed alkyne oxidation, this versatile heterocycle can be prepared in only two steps from readily available phenols and with mostly high efficiencies.

A PhI(OAc)(2) mediated selective functionalization of sp(3) C-H bonds adjacent to a nitrogen atom has been reported. When piperidine derivates were used, direct diacetoxylation of alpha and beta sp(3) C-H adjacent to a nitrogen atom were observed to afford various cis-2,3-diacetoxylated piperidines. On the other hand, tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives gave various alpha-C-H functionalized products in the presence of PhI(OAc)(2). Nitroalkanes, dialkyl malonates, and beta-keto ester are active participants in this coupling reaction. Meanwhile, alpha-amino nitriles can also be obtained by oxidative coupling of amines with malononitrile.

Steric Bulk or Conformation Control? Optimization of P,N-bidentate ligands reveals the importance of conformation control in the development of highly efficient intermolecular trapping of reactive α-oxo gold carbene intermediates. While a pendant piperidine ring offers suitable steric bulk, fixing its conformation to provide better shielding to the highly electrophilic carbene center turned out to be crucial for the excellent reaction efficiency. A generally highly efficient and broadly applicable synthesis of carboxymethyl ketones from readily available carboxylic acids and terminal alkynes is developed under exceptionally mild reaction conditions.

A newly developed P,N-bidentate ligand enables enantioselective intramolecular cyclopropanations by in-situ generated, reactive α-oxo gold carbene intermediate. The ligand design is based on our previously proposed structure of the carbene intermediate in the presence of a P,N-bidentate ligand, which has a well-organized tris-coordinated gold center, and was implemented by incorporating a C2-symmetric piperidine ring as the nitrogen part. With a range of racemic transformations of α-oxo gold carbene intermediates recently developed, this new class of chiral ligands, as demonstrated in this study, could usher in a new and synthetically valuable phase of exploiting their applications in asymmetric synthesis.