Selective Organic Synthesis Through Generation and Reactivity Control of Hyper-Coordinate Metal Species

This paper is a review of my 40 years of research at Kyoto, Sagamihara, and Yokohama, all based on the generation of hyper-coordinate metal species such as ate complexes and pentacoordinate silicates. The topics are: (i) carbenoid reagents for carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions, (ii) nucleophilic substitution at acetal carbons using aluminate reagents, (iii) preparation of magnesium enolates and its reaction with nitriles, (iv) Cr(II) reagents for reduction of organic halides and highly selective carbon-carbon bond formation, (v) organic synthesis with organosilion reagents/fluoride ions, (vi) cross-coupling reaction of organosilicon compounds, and (vii) silicon-based conjugate addition to alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl acceptors. (c) 2008 The Japan Chemical journal Forum and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Chem Rec 8: 337-350; 2008: Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI 10.1002/tcr.20162