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  • Organocatalytic cycloadditi...
    Yang, Hui; Sun, Huai-Ri; He, Rui-Qing; Yu, Le; Hu, Wei; Chen, Jie; Yang, Sen; Zhang, Gong-Gu; Zhou, Ling

    Nature communications, 02/2022, Volume: 13, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    The axially chiral indole-aryl motifs are present in natural products and biologically active compounds as well as in chiral ligands. Atroposelective indole formation is an efficient method to construct indole-based biaryls. We report herein the result of a chiral phosphoric acid catalyzed asymmetric cycloaddition of 3-alkynylindoles with azonaphthalenes. A class of indole-based biaryls were prepared efficiently with excellent yields and enantioselectivities (up to 98% yield, 99% ee). Control experiment and DFT calculations illustrate a possible mechanism in which the reaction proceeds via a dearomatization of indole to generate an allene-iminium intermediate, followed by an intramolecular aza-Michael addition. This approach provides a convergent synthetic strategy for enantioselective construction of axially chiral heterobiaryl backbones.