Received 03 Jul 2015, Accepted 05 Oct 2015
First published online 06 Oct 2015
Abstract
Nitrogen-containing heterocycles are fundamentally important to the
function of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and materials. Herein, we
report a bio-inspired approach to the synthesis of oxindoles, which
couples the energetic requirements of dehydrogenative C-N bond formation
to the reduction of molecular oxygen (O2). Our method is inspired by
the biosynthesis of melanin pigments (melanogenesis), but diverges from
the biosynthetic polymerization. Mechanistic analysis reveals the
involvement of CuII-semiquinone radical intermediates, which enable
dehydrogenative carbon-heteroatom bond formation that avoids a
catechol/quinone redox couple. This mitagates the deleterious polarity
reversal that results from phenolic dearomatization, and enables a
high-yielding phenolic C-H functionalization under catalytic aerobic
conditions. Our work highlights the broad synthetic utility and
efficiency of forming C-N bonds via a catalytic aerobic dearomatization
of phenols, which is currently an underdeveloped transformation.
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