A synthetic approach to quinindoline derivatives by the Cu-catalyzed dual cyclization has been developed. This catalytic reaction is a practical method for the systematic synthesis of quinindoline core structure, which contains a limited-step synthetic strategy and can tolerant a wide variety of substituents. In addition, the mechanistic study reveals that the reaction initiates from a Lewis acid accelerated addition of aniline to nitrile and provides the indole substructure, and then the subsequent Cu-catalyzed C-N coupling reaction furnishes the quinoline subunit and affords the quinindoline structure.
Keywords: N-heterocycle; copper-catalyzed; cyclization; natural alkaloid; quinindoline.