Advances in Versatile Chiral Ligands for Asymmetric Gold Catalysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript describes an interesting set of asymmetric reactions catalysed by gold I complexes and captures the latest development in the field. Nevertheless, dealing these as per ligand is not a useful format. Researchers set goals based on specific transformations and/or molecular architectures and consult the literature accordingly rather than " I have this ligand, what can I do with it". As is, I do not recommend the manuscript for publication, instead, I recommend that the format is changed entirely to address latest gold-catalysed developments by reaction category (for example) cycloadditions oxazolines, enyne cycloadditions, cycloisomerisations, cyclopropanations etc. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It is good review for the first contact with the subject: light and clearly composed.

The scope. There are only 3 example of reactions which are not cyclisation are presented in the manuscript: two examples of addition of nucleophiles to allene and one example of single bond isomerisation. So, I am wonder whether it could be better to change the title to more appropriate.

As an introductory material this review requires better introduction: the mechanistic consideration for the achiral and stereoselective reactions and general concepts should be presented.

Authors discussed the structure of the gold complexes (lines 22-37) it would be better to present and discuss the X-Ray structure of them to support the assumptions made.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The review presented by Rui Zhang et al described several gold-catalyzed transformations performed enantioselectively. In this particular review, the authors have presented the methodologies found in the literature classified by the corresponding ligand used as catalyst. In the opinion of this referee, this classification left out several methodologies from this review, however the authors have made a great effort in explaining the structural motifs found in the corresponding ligand to explain the benefits or the observed results in each case (see for example line 110-114, 135-137, 185-187, etc...)

Although in some cases the skeletal characteristics of the corresponding ligand are not mentioned, the authors have made a great effort to include the most important information about the ligands found in the literature. In any case, compared to other reviews (see for example Chem. Soc. Rev., 2016, 45, 4567-4589 by Toste) this represents an interesting alternative because it explains the most important references from a different point of view.

Analyzing the cited references, the explanation made for each of them, the chemdraw schemes and so on, I consider this review publishable without any addition or correction.

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the positive comments.

Reviewer 4 Report

Paper is well designed and easy readable. 

I agree with the authors that the role of chiral ligands have to be stressed in order to modulate chirality in the final product.

I believe the manuscript is of interest for community of Catalysts and I suggest to accept in present form.

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the positive comments.

Reviewer 5 Report

Owing to the development of chiral ligands, asymmetric gold catalysis has witnessed considerable progress in these decades. In this review, Zhang et al. describe the advancement by categorizing the structures of chiral ligands. The description is clear, and this manuscript will be useful to understand the state of the art of asymmetric gold catalysis. I recommend the publication of the manuscript in Catalysts with minor revision.

 

Line 163, Ferrocenyl phosphine has been originally devised by Tamio Hayashi. It is nice to cite the Hayashi’s paper also in addition to ref. 47.  

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

If the advances "per ligand" are acceptable by the editor and fellow reviewers I have no objection in recommending the manuscript for publication in Catalysts

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript was corrected and could be accepted.