Modern synthetic pathways towards eribulin and its subunits

• Sebastian Dominik Graf

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 495–526, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.37

Screwing the helical chirality through terminal peri-functionalization

• Devesh Chandra,
• Sachin and
• Upendra Sharma

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2026, 22, 205–212, doi:10.3762/bjoc.22.14

• another important type of chirality, where the chirality is controlled by restricted rotation among an axis. These types of molecules play an important role as chiral ligands in organic synthesis, i.e., BINOL, BINAP, etc. [9][10][11]. Another form of chirality, where chirality depends on a constrained

C2 to C6 biobased carbonyl platforms for fine chemistry

• Jingjing Jiang,
• Muhammad Noman Haider Tariq,
• Florence Popowycz,
• Yanlong Gu and
• Yves Queneau

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2103–2172, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.165

Asymmetric total synthesis of tricyclic prostaglandin D2 metabolite methyl ester via oxidative radical cyclization

• Miao Xiao,
• Liuyang Pu,
• Qiaoli Shang,
• Lei Zhu and
• Jun Huang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1964–1972, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.152

• was initially investigated (Scheme 3). Chan’s diene (16) was subjected to condensation with freshly distilled aldehyde 17 in THF at room temperature, using a catalytic system comprising Ti(OiPr)4/(S)-BINOL complex (2.0 mol %). Subsequent deprotection with pyridinium p-toluenesulfonate (PPTS) at 0 °C

Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed asymmetric synthesis of helically chiral, planarly chiral and inherently chiral molecules

• Wei Liu and
• Xiaoyu Yang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1864–1889, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.145

• within this domain. Keywords: asymmetric catalysis; chiral phosphoric acid; helical chirality; inherent chirality; planar chirality; Introduction Since the seminal works by Akiyama [1] and Terada [2] et al. in 2004 demonstrated the application of BINOL-derived chiral phosphoric acids (CPAs) in

• framework of the diol precursors, predominantly axially chiral structures such as BINOL, H8-BINOL, SPINOL and VAPOL scaffolds, which are widely used in the development of CPA catalysts. Furthermore, the ortho-aryl substitutions of the CPA catalyst can efficiently modulate the stereochemical and electronic

3,3'-Linked BINOL macrocycles: optimized synthesis of crown ethers featuring one or two BINOL units

• Somayyeh Kheirjou,
• Jan Riebe,
• Maike Thiele,
• Christoph Wölper and
• Jochen Niemeyer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1719–1729, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.134

• ). Keywords: BINOL; chirality; crown ethers; macrocycles; supramolecular chemistry; Introduction Crown ethers are at the heart of supramolecular chemistry [1]. Ever since their discovery in 1960, a vast number of different crown ethers has been synthesized and their interactions with guest molecules have

• enantioselective molecular recognition. Different chiral backbones were used for the construction of such chiral crown ethers, especially chiral 1,2-diols such as tartaric acid [5][6][7][8], propane-1,2-diol [9][10][11][12][13], cyclohexane-1,2-diol [14], carbohydrates [15], 1,1'-binapthyl-2,2'-diol (BINOL) [16

• ][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and more [24]. Especially BINOL-based crown ethers proved to be highly useful and were applied for stereoselective molecular recognition [25][26][27], for catalysis [25][28][29][30][31], as stationary phases for chromatography [32][33][34], but also as building blocks for

Recent total synthesis of natural products leveraging a strategy of enamide cyclization

• Chun-Yu Mi,
• Jia-Yuan Zhai and
• Xiao-Ming Zhang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 999–1009, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.81

• alkaloids, though it features a truncated cyclopentane rather than the characteristic cyclohexane or cyclohexene. In their optimization studies, the authors found the sequential catalysis of a chiral binol–Ti complex and BF3·Et2O to be the most efficient, providing products 39 in high yields with excellent

New advances in asymmetric organocatalysis II

• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 766–769, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.60

• transformation was catalyzed by a calcium complex of BINOL phosphate [29]. As can be seen from the summary above, the articles in this thematic issue cover a diverse array of topics in contemporary asymmetric organocatalysis. Moreover, they also reflect the diversity of our scientific community, as researchers

Development and mechanistic studies of calcium–BINOL phosphate-catalyzed hydrocyanation of hydrazones

• Carola Tortora,
• Christian A. Fischer,
• Sascha Kohlbauer,
• Alexandru Zamfir,
• Gerd M. Ballmann,
• Jürgen Pahl,
• Sjoerd Harder and
• Svetlana B. Tsogoeva

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 755–765, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.59

• hydrocyanation of hydrazones, catalyzed by a calcium–BINOL phosphate complex, has been studied for the first time both experimentally and computationally with DFT methods. A full catalytic cycle for the enantioselective synthesis of α-hydrazinonitriles is proposed based on insights gained from DFT calculations

• enantioselectivity achieved with the calcium catalyst remains modest, mainly due to competing pathways for the Z- and E-hydrazone isomers leading to opposite enantiomers. The experimental results confirm these computational proposals. Keywords: asymmetric synthesis; calcium–BINOL phosphate catalysis; hydrocyanation

• studies by the groups of Akiyama and Terada in 2004 [14][15], many excellent results have been achieved by applying BINOL-derived phosphoric acids, which can act as proton donor and acceptor [16][17][18][19], possessing both Brønsted acid and Lewis base character [20]. Substantial effort has been invested

Recent advances in allylation of chiral secondary alkylcopper species

• Minjae Kim,
• Gwanggyun Kim,
• Doyoon Kim,
• Jun Hee Lee and
• Seung Hwan Cho

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 639–658, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.51

• -diborylalkanes 47 using an H8-BINOL-derived phosphoramidite ligand L5, achieving exceptional enantiocontrol (Scheme 16) [59]. Their studies revealed the critical role of both the alkali metal cation and boronic ester moiety. While LiOt-Bu provided excellent enantioselectivity (er = 95:5), NaOt-Bu and KOt-Bu

Recent advances in electrochemical copper catalysis for modern organic synthesis

• Yemin Kim and
• Won Jun Jang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 155–178, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.9

• enantioselective C–H alkynylation of ferrocene carboxamides with terminal alkynes by using Cu/BINOL and an electrocatalytic system (Figure 5) [49]. 8-Aminoquinoline-assisted C–H functionalization provided planar chiral ferrocenes with high yield and enantioselectivity. This reaction can be applied to a wide range

Recent advances in organocatalytic atroposelective reactions

• Henrich Szabados and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 55–121, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.6

• (Scheme 23) [47]. These reactions were catalyzed by both BINOL-derived (TRIP) CPA (S)-C23 and SPINOL-derived CPA (S)-C24, providing axially chiral products 71 and 73, respectively. Control experiments showed the importance of the N–H group on the indole ring and the presence of both carboxylate groups in

• were able to separate the enamine intermediate formed from diarylketone and ketoester. Later, the BINOL-derived (TRIP) CPA (R)-C23 was used in a similar Friedländer reaction [51]. Acetylacetone was utilized with diarylketones 82 containing arylethyl chains to form axially chiral products 83 (Scheme 27

• with key hydrogen bonds between substrates, organocatalyst, and HFIP. Sheng et al. utilized the BINOL-derived organocatalyst C34 in the reaction of benzylindoles 148 and 2-indolylmethanols 149 leading to the bisindoles 150 (Scheme 44) [72]. Very good yields and good to high enantioselectivities were

Asymmetric organocatalytic synthesis of chiral homoallylic amines

• Nikolay S. Kondratyev and
• Andrei V. Malkov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2349–2377, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.201

• enantioselectivities (90–99% ee) and good yields (75–94%) have been achieved on a wide range of aromatic and aliphatic N-acylimines 2 using chiral 3,3’-diaryl-BINOL 3 as catalyst (Scheme 2). The reaction proved to be highly tolerant to the nature of the R1 substituent in imine 2, demonstrating high yields and

• attributed to the chair-like transition state where the organoboron reagent 1 exchanges one isopropoxy group for one of the BINOL 3 oxygen atoms, whereas the free OH group of the BINOL forms a hydrogen bond to the carbonyl of substrate 2. The flanking phenyl groups on the BINOL facilitate recognition between

• two enantiotopic faces of acylimine 2, exposing only one face to the attack by the allyl group. The replacement of one isopropoxy (iPrO) group between allylboronate 1 with BINOL was confirmed by ESI-MS and NMR analysis of the reaction mixture. Interestingly, both (E)- and (Z)-crotyl boronates 6 and 8

Catalysing (organo-)catalysis: Trends in the application of machine learning to enantioselective organocatalysis

• Stefan P. Schmid,
• Leon Schlosser,
• Frank Glorius and
• Kjell Jorner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2280–2304, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.196

• general enough to cover the space of interest. One pioneering study in the field of mechanistic transferability for enantioselectivity prediction was published by Reid and Sigman [120] in 2019. The authors manually combined 367 different published reactions of BINOL-phosphoric acid catalysed nucleophilic

Chiral bifunctional sulfide-catalyzed enantioselective bromolactonizations of α- and β-substituted 5-hexenoic acids

• Sao Sumida,
• Ken Okuno,
• Taiki Mori,
• Yasuaki Furuya and
• Seiji Shirakawa

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1794–1799, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.158

• without substituents on the carbon–carbon double bond have remained a formidable challenge. To address this limitation, we report herein the asymmetric bromolactonization of 5-hexenoic acid derivatives catalyzed by a BINOL-derived chiral bifunctional sulfide. Keywords: asymmetric catalysis

• remained a formidable challenge in the field of catalytic asymmetric synthesis (Scheme 1b) [23][24][25]. To address this limitation, we have investigated the use of BINOL-derived chiral bifunctional sulfide catalysts, which were developed by our group [10], in asymmetric bromolactonizations of α

• -valerolactones 3 (Scheme 1d). Herein, we report our additional efforts to overcome limitations in catalytic asymmetric halolactonizations. Results and Discussion α,α-Diphenyl-5-hexenoic acid (2a) was selected as a model substrate to evaluate the performance of our BINOL-derived chiral bifunctional sulfide

Catalytic multi-step domino and one-pot reactions

• Svetlana B. Tsogoeva

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 254–256, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.25

• of transannular cycloadditions of cycloalkenone hydrazones catalyzed by BINOL-derived phosphoric acid are reported in the Full Research Paper by Vicario, Merino, and co-workers [10]. Their methodologies can now be used to predict the reactivity of different substrates in other cycloaddition reactions

Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation of 3,3-difluoro-3H-indoles

• Yumei Wang,
• Guangzhu Wang,
• Yanping Zhu and
• Kaiwu Dong

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 205–211, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.20

• (1a) as the model substrate, Hantzsch ester (HE-Et) as the hydrogen source, and BINOL-derived chiral phosphoric acids (CPA) as the catalyst (Table 1). With chiral phosphoric acid CPA-1, the transfer hydrogenation reaction proceeded well in PhCF3 at room temperature and the target product 2a was

Aromatic C–H bond functionalization through organocatalyzed asymmetric intermolecular aza-Friedel–Crafts reaction: a recent update

• Anup Biswas

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 956–981, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.72

• 2004. In this methodology, a 1,1’-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL)-derived chiral phosphoric acid P1 was used as the catalytic reagent to couple 2-methoxyfuran (1) and N-Boc-protected aldimines 2 to incorporate an aza-tertiary stereocenter into the 2’ position of the heteroaromatic products 3 (Scheme 1) [24

• various asymmetric chemical transformations. These compounds play a dual role in the catalytic cycle due to their intrinsic Brønsted acidity and the ability to H-bond formation. Organophosphoric acids can perform as both H-bond acceptors and donors. 1,1’-Bi-2-naphthol (BINOL) and 1,1’-spirobiindane-7,7

• aza-Friedel–Crafts process between indoles 4 and cyclic N-sulfonyl ketimines 5. The authors employed the BINOL-based chiral phosphoric acid P2 bearing two imidazoline moieties at the ortho-positions as the catalyst which activates both reactants through H-bonding where the NH group of the nucleophile

Construction of hexabenzocoronene-based chiral nanographenes

• Ranran Li,
• Di Wang,
• Shengtao Li and
• Peng An

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 736–751, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.54

• hexaphenylbenzene 68 in an 85% yield. Then the Scholl cyclodehydrogenation of compound 68 was carried out in DDQ/TfOH to afford NG 69 in a 64% yield. By the selective dimerization of azopine-containing, HBC-monomer 69, the novel BINOL-like, atropisomeric chiral oxa-nanographene 70 was obtained in high yield

Computational studies of Brønsted acid-catalyzed transannular cycloadditions of cycloalkenone hydrazones

• Manuel Pedrón,
• Jana Sendra,
• Irene Ginés,
• Tomás Tejero,
• Jose L. Vicario and
• Pedro Merino

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 477–486, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.37

• alkenes under chiral BINOL-derived Brønsted acid catalysis has been studied by Houk and Rueping in 2014 [33]. These authors established the origin of the enantioselectivity and the differences between the catalyzed and uncatalyzed reactions, suggesting that the catalyzed reaction is, actually, a so-called

• (ELF and NCI analysis) of a series of transannular cycloadditions of hydrazones catalyzed by BINOL phosphoric acids, indicated that the process is an apolar concerted process in which all the events (bonds breaking/formation) take place in a concomitant way. In spite of the polarity of the reacting

Group 13 exchange and transborylation in catalysis

• Dominic R. Willcox and
• Stephen P. Thomas

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 325–348, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.28

• first example of Al‒O/B‒H exchange in catalysis was reported by Woodward, in the enantioselective catalytic hydroboration of ketones with HBcat as the terminal reductant (Scheme 23) [103]. A mixture of 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL), 1,1'-binaphthalene-2,2'-dithiol (DTBH2), or 2-hydroxy-2'-mercapto-1,1

• achieved. When AgOTf was replaced with silver (R)-BINOL phosphate, the asymmetric allylation proceeded in a moderate yield (60%) and enantioselectivity (40% ee). The structure of the ‘GaIOTf’ species was explored in more detail by Slattery, and a monovalent [GaI(18-crown-6)OTf] complex was isolated and

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of chiral thiophosphorus acids as organocatalysts

• Karen R. Winters and
• Jean-Luc Montchamp

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 1471–1478, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.154

• Prize in Chemistry awarded to McMillan and List. A subclass of organocatalysts introduced independently by Akiyama and Terada in 2004 [1][2], are the C2-symmetrical chiral phosphorus acids (CPAs) initially derived from the BINOL scaffold, and later extended to other scaffolds such as VAPOL [3] and

• hydroxyphosphoryl (P(=O)OH) moiety which renders the phosphorus atom achiral. Substituents can be introduced on the ring system by ortho-functionalization with R groups on each ring. This functionalization helps introduce steric bulk and a range of electron densities extending the C2-symmetry of the BINOL, creating

• -syntheses that are required [1][2][3][4]. Additionally, whereas either enantiomer of BINOL is relatively inexpensive (109 $/mol), it is not the case with SPINOL (17,000 $/mol), and VAPOL is not commercially available. Although one could synthesize these precursors as well, this multistep synthesis is time

Supramolecular approaches to mediate chemical reactivity

• Pablo Ballester,
• Qi-Qiang Wang and
• Carmine Gaeta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 1463–1465, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.152

• rotaxanes. MIMs show interesting structural and topological features and offer conceptually new possibilities as catalysts. In their minireview, Krajnc and Niemeyer [21] highlighted the use of the axially chiral 1,1'-binaphthyl-2,2'-diol (BINOL) unit as a stereogenic element in MIMs. The authors comment on

• the synthesis and properties of such BINOL-based chiral MIMs, together with their use in further diastereoselective modifications, their application in asymmetric catalysis, and stereoselective chemosensing. In their minireview, Prodip Howlader and Michael Schmittel [22] highlighted the recent results

Heteroleptic metallosupramolecular aggregates/complexation for supramolecular catalysis

• Prodip Howlader and
• Michael Schmittel

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 597–630, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.62

• that the chiral moiety should be incorporated in the ligand unit in order to provide an enantiopure assembly with an asymmetric cavity. 1,1'-Binaphthol (BINOL) is one such chiral building block, which has been successfully utilized to carry out numerous asymmetric catalytic reactions [74]. Keeping this

• in mind, Stang and co-workers constructed heteroleptic triangles via the assembly of a BINOL-based ditopic ligand and 180° trans-Pt(II) acceptors. The 3,3'-dipyridyl-substituted chiral BINOL donor (S)-37 has a bite angle of 60° and when treated with linear 180° acceptors 38 and 39, it produced the

• differently sized triangles (S)-40 and (S)-41 depending on the length of the organic spacer in the acceptor unit (Figure 9) [75]. Since the interior cavity of the homochiral macrocycles was equipped with BINOL units, they were utilized as catalysts for the asymmetric conjugate addition of chalcone 42 with

BINOL as a chiral element in mechanically interlocked molecules

• Matthias Krajnc and
• Jochen Niemeyer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 508–523, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.53

• '-binaphthyl-2,2'-diol (BINOL) unit as a stereogenic element in mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs). We describe the synthesis and properties of such BINOL-based chiral MIMs, together with their use in further diastereoselective modifications, their application in asymmetric catalysis, and their use in

• stereoselective chemosensing. Given the growing importance of mechanically interlocked molecules and the key advantages of the privileged chiral BINOL backbone, we believe that this research area will continue to grow and deliver many useful applications in the future. Keywords: axial chirality; BINOL; catenanes

• planar chirality into at least one of the subcomponents. One of the most important chiral molecular frameworks in general is the 1,1'-binaphthyl-2,2'-diol unit (BINOL, see Figure 1). BINOL is an axially chiral molecule with a high configurational stability and a well-established synthetic chemistry