Palladium-Catalyzed Enantioselective Intramolecular Heck Dearomative Annulation of Indoles with N-Tosylhydrazones

J Org Chem. 2023 Nov 17;88(22):15881-15893. doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.3c01960. Epub 2023 Nov 3.

Abstract

An elegant Pd(dba)2-catalyzed enantioselective Heck dearomative annulation of indoles and N-tosylhydrazones for the straightforward assembly of structurally diverse optically active indoline scaffolds containing the quaternary carbon centers at the C2 position has been developed. The tandem protocol, which utilized a Pd(dba)2/BINOL-based phosphoramidite ligand as the catalytic system, proceeded smoothly through successive oxidative addition, intramolecular carbon palladation, migratory insertion, and β-elimination sequences, leading to the chiral indoline derivatives in moderate to excellent yields, with excellent enantioselectivities and diastereoselectivities. In addition, the synthetic practicability of the catalytic system was underlined by a scaled-up experiment and the late-stage derivatization of the products, thus highlighting the potential applications in synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and material science.