Palladium-catalysed decarboxylative annulations of vinylethylene carbonates leading to diverse functionalised heterocycles

Heterocycles are the fundamental structural motifs found in natural products and biologically active compounds. The construction of these structures is therefore an important task in organic chemistry. Vinylethylene carbonates (VECs) are versatile building blocks that can undergo transition metal catalysed decarboxylation to enable various kinds of interesting transformations. This review provides an overview of the significant achievements of VECs in palladium-catalysed annulations over the past five years. The flexible reactivity of VECs is demonstrated by various 3 + 2, 5 + n and other types of annulations, which could offer powerful protocols for accessing diverse functionalised heterocycles.