Memory of Chirality as a Prominent Pathway for the Synthesis of Natural Products through Chiral Intermediates

The ability of a chiral molecule to be able to transform from one structure to another, whilst remembering its original molecular information by means of an appropriate transition state is an abstract notion that may very well play a key role in important synthetic processes, and has thus attracted a considerable amount of attention among the chemistry community. Here, we have highlighted this concept of “memory of chirality” (MOC) and extended it beyond the case of a simple molecule to larger and more complex natural products. Updated approaches that have recently been elucidated to obtain these asymmetric natural products are described, some of which may, until now, have been overcomplicated or overlooked.