Strained small rings in gold-catalyzed rapid chemical transformations.

Gold-catalyzed reactions, which have been widely explored over the past several years, are powerful tools in organic synthesis to access complex molecular frameworks, and some corresponding excellent reviews have been reported. However, little attention has been paid to summarize the reactions of strained small-ring-containing molecules catalyzed by gold. This critical review mainly puts its emphasis on the recent progress in the field of gold-catalyzed transformations of cyclopropyl-, cyclopropenyl-, epoxy- and aziridinyl-containing molecules. The rapid construction of interesting building blocks in organic synthesis from strained small rings catalyzed by gold has been summarized in this review (106 references).