Chiral Lewis Acid Rare-Earth Metal Complexes in Enantioselective Catalysis

The progress made over the past two decades in asymmetric catalysis, focusing on chiral Lewis acid complexes of rare-earth metal, is reviewed. The applications of several different catalytic systems of chiral Lewis acid complexes in various asymmetric reactions have been discussed: (1) asymmetric aldol reaction, (2) asymmetric Mannich reaction, (3) asymmetric Michael reaction, (4) asymmetric Friedel-Crafts reaction, (5) asymmetric homologation of carbonyl compounds with alpha-diazoesters, (6) asymmetric ene-type reaction, (7) asymmetric cycloaddition reaction, (8) asymmetric ring-opening reaction, and (9) asymmetric miscellaneous reaction.