Enantioselective synthesis of all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers in acyclic systems

Most of the methods for the creation of all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers in acyclic systems were developed in the last decade showing the contemporary interest of this field of research. Initial strategies, where chiral entities were linked to carbon skeleton, to enantioselective catalysis and finally to strategies where several carbon-carbon bonds were created in a single-pot operation, reflect the constant strive and creativity in the design and execution of synthetic sequences. This feature article summarizes these sequences and is divided into sections on substitution and additions reactions, alkylation, aldol, Mannich and rearrangements reactions. It is safe to predict that this field of chemistry will continue to grow exponentially in the coming decades and the ready availability of a wide range of these chiral entities will provide an excellent opportunity to further enrich mainstream synthetic methodologies.