Theoretical investigation into the palladium-catalyzed silaboration of pyridines

The palladium-catalyzed silaboration of pyridines has been investigated with the use of density functional theory. The results predict a very interesting dearomatization step in the reaction mechanism which is surprisingly facile due to the formation of a very strong covalent bond between nitrogen and boron in the product. Our calculations show that the regioselectivity of the final product is governed by a mixture of electronic and steric effects, and our predicted outcomes are in agreement with the experimental results.