The development of catalytic enantioselective C(sp3)–H metal insertion reactions has been a significant challenge. Moderate success has recently been achieved via Pd-catalyzed desymmetrization of prochiral C–H bonds located on two different carbon centers. Herein, we report the discovery of chiral acetyl-protected aminoethyl quinoline (APAQ) ligands that enables Pd(II)-catalyzed enantioselective arylation of prochiral methylene C–H bonds on the same carbon center. The feasibility of performing asymmetric Pd insertion into ubiquitous β-methylene C–H bonds of aliphatic amides offers an alternative disconnection for constructing β-chiral centers. Systematic tuning of the ligand structure reveals that a six-membered instead of a five-membered chelation of these types of ligands with the Pd(II) is essential for accelerating the C(sp3)–H activation thereby achieving enantioselectivity.

A complementary set of chiral N,N‐ligands enables the Pd‐catalyzed β‐C−H arylation of unbiased internal methylene groups in good yield and with high levels of enantio‐ and diastereoinduction. Both the dia‐ and enantioselectivity can be reversed, thus allowing the selective arylation of any of the four β‐C−H bonds in cycloalkanecarboxamides of various ring sizes. The method is applicable to a broad range of aryl iodides with electron‐withdrawing and ‐donating substituents in the o‐, m‐, or p‐position.

In this report we describe the synthesis of differentially functionalized pyridine derivatives 3 and the related 3-bromosubstituted pyridines 11. Dissociation of 6H-1,2-oxazine precursors (1a, 1b, 5, 6, or 12) in situ, mediated by boron trifluoride-diethyl ether, generates the azapyrylium intermediates A, which undergo hetero-Diels-Alder reactions with various mono-and disubstituted alkynes 2. In general, these pyridine syntheses proceeded with high efficiencies and were very flexible with respect to all positions in the pyridine cores. For the 3-phenyl-substituted pyridine derivatives 3a-3j and 11a-11f the best results were obtained by a new microwave-assisted protocol, which is clearly superior to the previously used conventional procedure at low temperature in dichloro-

SummaryA number of 4-aryl- and 4-alkynyl-substituted 6H-1,2-oxazines 8 and 9 have been prepared in good yields via cross coupling reactions of halogenated precursors 2, which in turn are easily accessible by bromination of 6H-1,2-oxazines 1. Lewis-acid promoted reaction of 1,2-oxazine 9c with 1-hexyne provided alkynyl-substituted pyridine derivative 12 thus demonstrating the potential of this approach for the synthesis of pyridines.