Oxindoles and spirooxindoles are important synthetic targets that are often considered to be prevalidated with respect to their biological activity and applications for pharmaceutical lead discovery. This review features efficient strategies for the enantioselective synthesis of spirocyclic oxindoles, focusing on reports in 2010 and 2011. Although enantioselective synthesis remains an ongoing challenge, exciting recent advances in this area feature spirooxindoles with greater complexity, up to eight stereogenic centers, more practical synthetic methods, and new catalytic activation strategies. Developments in catalyst systems and reaction conditions have shown that many reactions can be optimized to control selectivity and provide access to isomeric products, which are important for biological testing. This review is organized based on two primary disconnection strategies, and then further subdivided into the type and ring size of the spirocycle that is generated. Strategies are also compared for the synthesis of non-spirocyclic 3,3'-disubstituted oxindoles.

Spirocycles provide an exciting platform to develop and understand the reactivity and selectivity for a wide variety of catalysts while affording diverse strategies to access molecules with important applications. This review features recent examples in which a spirocenter is formed within the key step of a catalytic asymmetric process, in either an intramolecular or intermolecular fashion. Examples highlight notable spirocyclization strategies and compare the reactivity and selectivity for different classes of chiral organocatalysts and organometallic catalysts.

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The first catalytic asymmetric carboannulation with allylsilanes is presented. The enantioselective [3+2] annulation is catalyzed using a Sc(III)-indapybox complex with tetrakis-[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]-borate (BArF) to enhance catalytic activity and control stereoselectivity. Functionalized cyclopentanes containing a quaternary carbon are derived from alkylidene oxindole, coumarin, and malonate substrates with high stereoselectivity. The enantioselective 1,4-conjugate addition and enantioselective lactone formation (via trapping of the β-silyl carbocation) is also described.

A short and efficient synthesis of a series of isoprenecarboxylic acid esters (ICAEs) and their corresponding polymers is presented. The base-catalyzed eliminative ring-opening of anhydromevalonolactone (3) provides isoprenecarboxylic acid (6-H), which was further transformed to the ICAEs. Reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization was used to synthesize high molecular weight (>100 kg mol−1) poly(isoprenecarboxylates) with dispersities (Đ) of ca. 1.5. The glass transition temperatures (Tg) and entanglement molecular weights (Me) of the poly(isoprenecarboxylates) were determined and showed similar trends to the Tg and Me values for analogous poly(acrylate esters). These new glucose-derived materials could provide a sustainable alternative to poly(acrylates).