Recent progress towards gold-catalyzed synthesis of N-containing tricyclic compounds based on ynamides.

N-Containing tricyclic compounds, especially the tricyclic N-heterocycles, are important structural motifs that possess significant potential in organic chemistry for their momentous applications in natural and man-made bioactive molecules. Gold catalysis, which exhibits specific catalytic properties in terms of both high reactivity and selectivity for various organic transformations, has proven to be a powerful tool for the straightforward synthesis of cyclic compounds, especially the polycyclic molecules. Currently, several approaches towards polycycle synthesis have been developed via gold-catalyzed transformations of readily available ynamides. In this review, we will focus on the recent advances in the gold-catalyzed construction of N-containing tricycles based on ynamides by highlighting their specificity and applicability, and the mechanistic rationale is presented where possible.