Transition metal-catalyzed direct arylation of substrates with activated sp3-hybridized C-H bonds and some of their synthetic equivalents with aryl halides and pseudohalides.

Transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of alkyl metals and aryl halides or pseudohalides have emerged as a powerful methodology for the formation of Csp3-Csp2 bonds over the past decades.1 However, significant attention has also been focused on Pdand Ni-catalyzed Csp3-Csp2 bond-forming reactions that involve aryl metals and haloalkyl compounds lacking -hydrogen atoms as cross-coupling partners.2 In contrast, until a few years ago, few examples were reported in the literature concerning transition metalcatalyzed reactions of aryl metals with functionalized alkyl halides including R-halocarbonyl compounds and R-bromosulfones bearing -hydrogen atoms,3 and a single example of Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of aryl metals and unfunctionalized alkyl halides bearing -hydrogen atoms had been described.4 Only in recent years, successful procedures for the Pd-,5 Ni-,6 Rh-,7 Fe-,8 V-,9 Co-,10 and Cu-catalyzed11 cross-coupling reactions of aryl metals and unfunctionalized alkyl halides bearing -hydrogen atoms have been developed.12 Nevertheless, new, effective, and more environmentallybenignmethodologiesfortheformationof(cyclo)alkyl-aryl bonds, which require a reduced number of synthetic operations, have emerged as valuable alternatives to the conventional cross-coupling reactions. These methodologies (Scheme 1) are based on transition metal-catalyzed simple or 2-fold C-H bond functionalization according to the following approaches: (a) highly regioselective Pd-catalyzed direct arylation reactions of unactivated sp3-hybridized C-H bonds with aryl halides (eq a, Scheme 1);13 (b) Pd-catalyzed direct alkylation reactions of aryl C-H bonds with alkyl metals (eq b, Scheme 1);14 Au-15 or Pdcatalyzed16 direct alkylation reactions of aryl C-H bonds with alkyl halides or pseudohalides (eq c, Scheme 1); (d) Pd-catalyzed arylations of unactivated sp3-hybridized C-H bonds with aryl metals (eq d, Scheme 1);14c (e) Pd-, Ru-, or Cu-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of sp3-hybridized C-H bonds with arylboronic acids using air as oxidant (eq d, Scheme 1);17 and (f) cross-dehydrogenative coupling of alkyl and aryl C-H bonds (eq e, Scheme 1). 18 Finally, great attention, particularly in the past decade, has also been focused on the design, development, and application of transition metal-catalyzed coupling reactions of aryl halides and pseudohalides with a wide variety of substrates containing activated sp3-hybridized C-H bonds (eq f, Scheme 1). A mini-review on this topic was published by Scolastico and Poli in 1999,19 and three excellent reviews that concern the results obtained in this rapidly growing area of extensive research by the groups of Miura, Natsume, Hartwig, and Buchwald up to the end of 2002 were published by Miura,20 Hartwig,21 and Lloyd-Jones22 a few years later. However, the reviews by Miura20 and Hartwig21 were limited in that they fundamentally emphasized the author’s own work and * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rossi@dcci.unipi. it. Chem. Rev. 2010, 110, 1082–1146 1082