title: Cyclobutanes in catalysis.
abstract: The exploitation of ring strain as a driving force to facilitate chemical reactions is a well-appreciated principle in organic chemistry. The most prominent and most frequently used compound classes in this respect are oxiranes and cyclopropanes. For rather a long time, cyclobutanes lagged behind these three-membered-ring compounds in their development as reactive substrates, but during the past decade an increasing number of useful reactions of four-membered-ring substrates have emerged. This Minireview examines corresponding catalytic reactions ranging from Lewis or Brønsted acid catalyzed processes to enzymatic reactions. The main focus is placed on transition-metal-catalyzed C-C bond-insertion and β-carbon-elimination processes, which enable exciting downstream reactions that deliver versatile building blocks.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 10, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Seiser
authors.forename: Tanguy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saget
authors.forename: Duc N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.forename: Nicolai
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cramer