Recent Advances in Copper-Catalyzed Boron-Reagent-Involved Multicomponent Difunctionalization of Alkenes

The multicomponent difunctionalization of alkenes is an important and highly efficient reaction for the rapid construction of molecules with structure diversity, which has some advantanges of high atom economy, wide substrate range as well as mild conditions and becomes the main research hotspot in organic synthesis in recent years. Many examples on the multicomponent difunctionalization of alkenes under metal-catalyzed or metal-free conditions have extentively been reported. Among them, the asymmetric version of some reactions was successfully achieved by the use of chiral ligands. However, compared with nobel metal catalysts such as ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, palladium and silver, the cheaper metal catalysts including iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese have attracted more special attention. In view of the application of copper catalyst and organoboron reagents in organic synthesis, the advances in copper-catalyzed multicomponent difunctionalization of alkenes with organoboron reagents since 2018 are reviewed. The major challenges and development prospects of this fields, including the discovery of new reaction type and organoboron reagents, better stereoselectivity, and deeper understanding on reaction mechanism are also discussed.