Cyclobutanes in Catalysis

The exploitation of ring strain as a driving force to facilitate chemical reactions is a well‐appreciated principle in organic chemistry. The most prominent and most frequently used compound classes in this respect are oxiranes and cyclopropanes. For rather a long time, cyclobutanes lagged behind these three‐membered‐ring compounds in their development as reactive substrates, but during the past decade an increasing number of useful reactions of four‐membered‐ring substrates have emerged. This Minireview examines corresponding catalytic reactions ranging from Lewis or Brønsted acid catalyzed processes to enzymatic reactions. The main focus is placed on transition‐metal‐catalyzed CC bond‐insertion and β‐carbon‐elimination processes, which enable exciting downstream reactions that deliver versatile building blocks.