A highly efficient gold and palladium combined methodology for the Sonogashira coupling of a wide array of electronically and structurally diverse aryl and heteroaryl halides has been reported.
The orthogonal reactivity of the two metals shows high selectivity and extreme functional group tolerance in Sonogashira coupling. A brief mechanistic study reveals that the gold-acetylide intermediate enters into palladium catalytic cycle at the transmetalation step.