A classical Friedel-Crafts alkylation of different indoles catalyzed by AlCl₃·6H₂O has been developed for a well-known important natural product, celastrol, resulting in a series of derivatives for further biological evaluation. The catalyst loading was reduced to 5 mol %, the reaction proceeds at ambient temperature and reaction time is only 3 h. The product yields range from 20% to 99%. A reaction mechanism is also proposed, based on our experiment results.
Keywords: AlCl3·6H2O; Friedel-Crafts alkylation; celastrol; indole.