Temporary silicon-tethered ring-closing metathesis: recent advances in methodology development and natural product synthesis.

Temporary silicon-tethered ring-closing metathesis represents an important cross-coupling strategy for the formation of medium-sized silacycles. These intermediates are valuable synthons in organic synthesis due to their propensity to undergo a facile refunctionalization through protodesilylation, oxidation, silane-group transfer or transmetallation. A particularly attractive utility of this methodology is an application in the synthesis of biologically important natural products. The purpose of this review article is to highlight the recent progress in methodology development and its strategic application toward the target-directed synthesis.