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5 - Highly Important / 1 - Unimportant: 2 Recommendation: The manuscript may be publishable, but it should be reviewed again after major revisions. Additional Comments: The authors present an approach to generating XXXXX. The work represents a logical extension based upon some nice chemistry previously reported by the same group in JACS, Tetrahedron and other peer-reviewed journals. The justification for publishing in JOC would be that the compounds are of synthetic use do to their appearance in natural products as well as the regioselectivity obtained in the transformation. Both of these have only been partially demonstrated by the data presented in the article. The following should be addressed prior to resubmission to JOC 1. The only AAAAA shown to work in the reaction is XXXXXXXX. If this reaction is of synthetic utility the scope of the alkene substrate must be examined. Substitution on the olefin as well as examined other AAAA substituents besides methyl ketone would make for a stringer publication. 2. The author states that the use of XXXXXXXXXX (page 5). This needs to be supported by running the control experiment where XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX whereas the author's statement is opposed to this. 3. Mechanistic assumptions about the rate determining step and how it affects the regioselectivity of the reaction should be avoided unless supported by experimental or prior art data. (page five second paragraph first sentence) 4. Regioseletivities of the compounds in table 3 are not nearly as impressive as in table 2, xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5. Scheme 2 should list xxxxxxxxxxx 6. The compounds that xxxxxxxxxx The above changes would demonstrate the methodology in its fullest capacity as a tool for natural product synthesis (especially points 1,4 and 6) and the substrate scope beyond AAAAA needs to be addressed prior to publication. If the authors methodology still is as selective when di and tri substituted olefins are employed this would be of significant value. Referee C's comments: |