Efficient organocatalysts derived from simple chiral acyclic amino acids in asymmetric catalysis

Chiral amino acids have played a key role in the development of organocatalysis from a biomimetic concept to an independent methodology, together with metal catalysis and enzyme catalysis, comprising the three major catalytic methodologies in modern organic synthesis. As an excellent pool for the design of organocatalysts, chiral amino acids have two obvious advantages: ready availability with usually affordable costs and modular structures allowing facile tuning of the catalytic efficiency. Recently, bifunctional/multifunctional primary–secondary amines, tertiary amine–thioureas, aminophosphines easily prepared from simple acyclic amino acids have been developed as efficient organocatalysts for various asymmetric reactions leading to a variety of useful chiral compounds. In this perspective, we present a personal overview of some of these recent advances in this field based on our own research experience.