Efficient synthesis and resolution of a series of meta-substituted inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arene derivatives have been described. Consequently, the meta-nitro, bromo and chloro substituted inherently chiral calix [4]arenes could be directly synthesized by the nitration, bromination, and chlorination of the acylating product of aminocalix[4]arene. meta-Cyano and phenyl substituted inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arenes were readily obtained by the nucleophilic substitution reaction or Suzuki coupling reaction from the meta-bromo substituted one under the Pd-catalyzed conditions. For kinetic resolution of the racemic inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arenes, it was found that the electron-withdrawing ability of substituent was helpful to improving the resolution efficiency of the acylation process, and the kinetic resolution could be efficiently applied to the resolution of meta-nitro substituted inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arene, providing (cS)-or (cR)-isomer in up to 95% or 99.9% ee value, respectively, with the corresponding chiral acylating reagent. Moreover, by introduction of the chiral auxiliary, enantiopure antipodes of meta-cyano and phenyl substituted inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arenes could also be readily obtained. These enantiopure aminocalix[4]arenes are potential building blocks for constructing novel chiral receptors and asymmetric catalysts. inherently chiral calixarenes, kinetic resolution, synthesis Citation: Xu Z X, Zhang C, Huang Z T, et al. Efficient synthesis and resolution of meta-substituted inherently chiral aminocalix[4]arene derivatives.Calixarenes are a versatile class of macrocyclic compounds that have been studied extensively, both as host materials and as building blocks for the synthesis of designed specific receptors [1,2]. The introduction of chirality in calixarenes should create platforms for the potential enantioselective recognition of chiral guests and asymmetric catalysis [3][4][5][6][7]. Besides the functionalization with chiral moieties [8], inherently chirality originates from the asymmetric array of achiral residues on the calixarene skeletons, which have attracted much attention for their unique structure and potential applications in chiral recognition and asymmetric catalysis.Since Gutsche and co-workers [9] reported the first example of inherently chiral calix[4]arene in 1982, there have been several different approaches to inherently chiral calyx-*Corresponding author (email: cchen@iccas.ac.cn) arenes in the literature [10][11][12]. However, their optical resolution was usually achieved by using the HPLC methods [1,13], which was inappropriate for scale-up and thus impeded their practical applications. In recent years, we [14][15][16][17][18] and other groups [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] reported a convenient approach to enantiopure inherently chiral calixarene derivatives by introduction of a chiral auxiliary and then separation of subsequent diasteromers via column chromatography on silica gel, preparative TLC, or even simple crystallization. This approac...