Recent Progress in the Metathesis Reaction

Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Ishikari-Toubetsu, Hokkaido, Japan 

Metathesis has been the most useful reaction in synthetic organic chemistry since the mid-1990s. In this reaction, bond fission of a double bond occurs and a new double bond is simultaneously formed  

Since the alkene formed in this reaction can further react with other alkenes, many products should be formed in the cross-metathesis (CM). Therefore, in the early days, only ring-closing metathesis (RCM) of diene was investigated. It is known that the reaction is catalyzed by a transition metal. Pioneering work on olefin metathesis was undertaken by Villemin and Tsuji, who reported the synthesis of lactones using alkene metathesis  

New Frontiers in Asymmetric Catalysis, Edited by Koichi Mikami and Mark Lautens Copyright 2007 John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

Metathesis reactions are now widely used in natural product synthesis. Novel retrosynthetic analyses were developed because a carbon-carbon single bond can be formed after hydrogenation of a double bond constructed by metathesis. Although many types of metathesis are now known, the reaction is classified by olefin, enyne, and alkyne metatheses in this chapter. 

---