Enantioselective Gold Catalysis: Opportunities Provided by Monodentate Phosphoramidite Ligands with an Acyclic TADDOL Backbone

The tail makes the difference: Removing the isopropylidene acetal unit from well-known TADDOL ligands improved the performance of the derived phosphoramidite ligands in asymmetric gold catalysis (see scheme; Ts=4-toluenesulfonyl). X-ray crystallography showed that the binding pocket has an effective threefold symmetry, with through-space interactions between the arene rings of the ligand and the gold center