Study of the lanthanide-catalyzed, aqueous, asymmetric Mukaiyama aldol reaction.

The development of efficient methods for the asymmetric Mukaiyama aldol reaction in aqueous solution has received great attention. We have developed a new series of chiral lanthanide-containing complexes that produce Mukaiyama aldol products with outstanding enantioselectivities. In this paper, we describe an optimized ligand synthesis, trends in stereoselectivity that result from changing lanthanide ions, and an exploration of substrate scope that includes aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes and silyl enol ethers derived from aromatic and aliphatic ketones.