Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions in one-pot multicatalytic processes

Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions have been investigated in multicatalytic processes to synthesize disubstituted alkenes and alkanes from carbonyl derivatives. The use of copper-catalyzed methylenation reactions is the key starting reaction to produce terminal alkenes which are not isolated, but submitted to further structure elongation. Not only is the isolation of the alkene intermediate unnecessary, but also the copper catalyst is a beneficial cocatalyst in the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. The desired products are thus typically obtained in higher yields using this one-pot approach. We have used these processes to synthesize hydroxylated (E)-stilbenoids, which are known chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agents, odorant-substituted indanes, and non-natural amino acids, such as homophenylalanine.