Construction of Carbocycles from Methylenecyclopropanes

Recent continuing studies on the reactive small molecules of methylenecyclopropanes (MCPs) type and their derivatives have led to the rapid development of a variety of efficient synthetic methods based on novel reactions. These new transformations have proved to be very powerful tools to access otherwise difficult-to-obtain molecules. Although there have been some nice reviews on the applications of MCPs, there is still none focusing on MCPs-based construction of carbocycles, which are a class of important skeletons in synthetic organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, natural product synthesis, biochemistry, and agrichemicals. Thus, this review is an attempt to summarize the reports published since 2002 on the construction of carbocyclic compounds starting from the versatile MCPs, hoping that it may fill the gaps in the field. 1 Introduction 2 Construction of Three-Membered Carbocycles 3 Construction of Four-Membered Carbocycles 4 Construction of Five-Membered Carbocycles 5 Construction of Six-Membered Carbocycles 6 Construction of Medium and Large Carbocycles 7 Conclusions