A catalytic enantioselective approach to tetrol bearing vicinal all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers.

The first highly enantioselective catalytic protocol for selective manipulation of tetrol benzylidene acetals through chiral phosphoric acid mediated oxidative desymmetrization is reported. This efficient approach provides a general access to vicinal all-carbon quaternary stereogenic center structural motifs, as well as structures containing vicinal tertiary and quaternary stereocenters enantioselectively. The synthetic utility has been furthermore demonstrated by transformations and gram-scale processes.