Heteroannulations of cyanoacetamide-based MCR scaffolds utilizing formamide

• Marios Zingiridis,
• Danae Papachristodoulou,
• Despoina Menegaki,
• Konstantinos G. Froudas and
• Constantinos G. Neochoritis

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 217–225, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.13

• utilized numerous times in medicinal chemistry campaigns as hits, leads and eventually even drugs, such as 2-aminothiophenes, -quinolines and -indoles [42][43][44][45]. Synthetic exploitation The synthesis of the key cyanoacetamide building blocks was our primary objective. In a parallel setup, a variety

Recent advances in organocatalytic atroposelective reactions

• Henrich Szabados and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 55–121, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.6

• axially chiral pyrroles and indoles 44 are obtained (Scheme 14). Zhu and co-workers developed a method for the atroposelective formation of arenes 48 by an NHC-catalyzed formal (4 + 2) cycloaddition [34]. The triazolium pre-catalyst (R,S)-C11 was the most efficient in providing a range of biaryls in high

• indoles 96 or pyrroles 99 and 1,4 diketones 97, respectively, the authors were able to achieve very good to near-perfect yields with consistently high enantioselectivities. Configurational stabilities of the products 98 and 100 were explored in toluene at 110 °C. Rotational barriers were calculated to be

• -naphthols, new atroposelective reactions of quinones and iminoquinones were developed [63]. The reaction of quinones with an ester group 109 and indoles with alkyl substituents 110 catalyzed by CPA C29 provided products 112 with regioselectivity on the pyrrole ring of indole (Scheme 35). On the contrary

Non-covalent organocatalyzed enantioselective cyclization reactions of α,β-unsaturated imines

• Sergio Torres-Oya and
• Mercedes Zurro

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3221–3255, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.268

• indoles 52 via a (3 + 2) cyclization with azoalkenes 53 catalyzed by chiral phosphoric acid XIV (Scheme 20). This methodology enables the synthesis of a wide scope of pyrroloindolines 54, important privileged polycyclic indolines in high yields (72–99%) and high enantioselectivities (90–99%) [43]. The

• azlactones. Enantioselective dearomatization of indoles by a (3 + 2) cyclization with azoalkenes catalyzed by a chiral phosphoric acid. Synthetic applicability of the pyrroloindoline derivatives. Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed (2 + 3) dearomative cycloaddition of 3-alkyl-2-vinylindoles with azoalkenes

Hypervalent iodine-mediated intramolecular alkene halocyclisation

• Charu Bansal,
• Oliver Ruggles,
• Albert C. Rowett and
• Alastair J. J. Lennox

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3113–3133, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.258

• cost effective and selective, one-pot transformation. Pharmaceutical uses for bio-active cyclic molecules accessible by I(III) reagents are plentiful; anticancer drugs can be formed from the basis of pyrrolo[2,3-b]indoles 1 [3][4], 2-oxazolines 2 [5][6], dihydrofuran 3 [7][8], and spirocyclic scaffolds

• [2,3-b]indoles 59 were synthesised in up to quantitative yields under mild reaction conditions at room temperature. A range of other indole derivatives were cyclised in similarly good yields demonstrating the scope of the reaction. Li and Liu reported the bromoamidation of alkenes in 2014 (Scheme 32

• source of fluoride and an activating reagent. Intramolecular carbofluorination of alkenes. Intramolecular chlorocyclisation of unsaturated amines. Synthesis of chlorinated cyclic guanidines 44. Synthesis of chlorinated pyrido[2,3-b]indoles 46. Chlorolactonization and chloroetherification reactions

Synthesis of the 1,5-disubstituted tetrazole-methanesulfonylindole hybrid system via high-order multicomponent reaction

• Cesia M. Aguilar-Morales,
• América A. Frías-López,
• Nadia V. Emilio-Velázquez,
• Alejandro Islas-Jácome,
• Angelica Judith Granados-López,
• Jorge Gustavo Araujo-Huitrado,
• Yamilé López-Hernández,
• Hiram Hernández-López,
• Luis Chacón-García,
• Jesús Adrián López and
• Carlos J. Cortés-García

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 3077–3084, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.256

• ; isocyanides; MCF-7 cell line; methanesulfonylindoles; Ugi-azide reaction; Introduction Nitrogen-containing heterocyclic moieties, such as 1,5-disubstituted tetrazoles and indoles, are considered pharmacophoric fragments due to their pivotal interactions with several targets involved in many diseases. They

• described (Scheme 1a–c). In 2021, Dömling’s research group synthesized a series of 1,5-disubstituted tetrazole-indoles 6 in good to excellent yields via an Ugi-azide/acidic ring-closure sequence [20]. Balalaie described an efficient method in 2018 for the synthesis of a new 1,5-disubstituted tetrazole

• -indole system 10, in a two-step reaction: Ugi-azide followed by a cyclization reaction catalyzed by AuCl3, in good to high yields [21]. In 2019, Salahi et al. synthesized the series of tetrazole-indoles 15 via an Ugi-azide reaction in moderate to high yields [22]. It is noteworthy that none of the

Advances in radical peroxidation with hydroperoxides

• Oleg V. Bityukov,
• Pavel Yu. Serdyuchenko,
• Andrey S. Kirillov,
• Gennady I. Nikishin,
• Vera A. Vil’ and
• Alexander O. Terent’ev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2959–3006, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.249

Copper-catalyzed yne-allylic substitutions: concept and recent developments

• Shuang Yang and
• Xinqiang Fang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2739–2775, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.232

• related to yne-allylic substitutions. Review Copper-catalyzed yne-allylic substitutions affording 1,3- and 1,4-enynes In 2022, Fang et al. [62] realized the copper-catalyzed yne-allylic substitution involving stabilized “soft” nucleophiles for the first time. Indoles and pyrroles with various substituents

• vinyl allenylidene is the key intermediate during the process (Scheme 14). Recently, Fang et al. [67] used electron-rich arenes as the nucleophiles to achieve remote enantioselective control of yne-allylic substitutions. It is worth noting that when indoles or indolizines were used, the reactions

• spiroannulation of 2-naphthols or electron-enriched phenols under mild conditions with excellent regioselectivities, enantioselectivities and diastereoselectivities (Scheme 44, 43a–g, 44a–q). In addition, the nucleophilic substitution–dearomative cyclization process between indoles and yne-allylic esters can also

Synthesis of spiroindolenines through a one-pot multistep process mediated by visible light

• Francesco Gambuti,
• Jacopo Pizzorno,
• Chiara Lambruschini,
• Renata Riva and
• Lisa Moni

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2722–2731, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.230

• -catalyzed protocol to obtain spiro[benzo[e][1,3]oxazine-2,3’-indoles] starting from 2-alkynylphenyl azides and 1,2-benzisoxazoles [12] (Scheme 1b). However, all these processes generally involve the preparation of starting materials, often not trivial. On the other hand, in 2018 Aksenov and Rubin reported

• the acid-catalyzed [4 + 1] cycloaddition of commercially available substrates, as indoles and nitroalkenes to give spiro-isoxazoles (Scheme 1c), but acceptable yields were obtained just using nitrostyrenes [13][14]. Despite these examples, the highly efficient construction of structurally diverse

A review of recent advances in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical late-stage functionalization classified by anodic oxidation, cathodic reduction, and paired electrolysis

• Nian Li,
• Ruzal Sitdikov,
• Ajit Prabhakar Kale,
• Joost Steverlynck,
• Bo Li and
• Magnus Rueping

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2500–2566, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.214

• , which reported the merger of electrochemistry and bioconjugation in 2018 (Scheme 4b) [11]. In 2020, Zheng and coworkers developed an interesting iodoamination of indoles using unactivated amines and benzotriazoles [12]. This difunctionalization reaction was carried out in an undivided cell with an RVC

• functionalized pyrimido[5,4-b]indoles due to its high functional group tolerance. Multiple examples were demonstrated with indole 1H-carboxamides linked to drug molecules or natural products at the R2 position. Additionally, an alkyl azide at the R2 position and an iodide at the R1 position were tolerated

Asymmetric organocatalytic synthesis of chiral homoallylic amines

• Nikolay S. Kondratyev and
• Andrei V. Malkov

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2349–2377, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.201

• as an activator. Interesting examples of a direct asymmetric allylation of indoles 15 (Scheme 4) and 3,4-dihydroisoquinolines 22 (Scheme 5) with geranyl- and prenylboronic acids 14 in the presence of BINOL derivatives were reported by Szabó [25]. In the case of 3-methylindole, the methodology enabled

• reversible coordination of BINOLs 13 or 21 to the prenyl- or geranylboronic acids 14, favouring one of the four possible chair-like transition states. The reaction scope for indoles 15 was demonstrated on a limited set of 5-methoxyindole, 5-bromoindole, and 4-indolyl-pinacol boronates reacting with E- and Z

• . 3,3’-Diaryl-BINOL-catalysed asymmetric organocatalytic allylation of acylimines [24]. Aminophenol-catalysed reaction between N-phosphinoylimines and pinacol allylboronic ester. Imine scope [6]. aReaction time: 6 h. Asymmetric geranylation and prenylation of indoles catalysed by (R)- or (S)-3,3

Efficacy of radical reactions of isocyanides with heteroatom radicals in organic synthesis

• Akiya Ogawa and
• Yuki Yamamoto

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2114–2128, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.182

• acid [58]. Rainier et al. reported the thiol-mediated 5-exo cyclization of o-alkynylaryl isocyanides, which successfully afforded dithiolated indoles 22 (Scheme 15) [59]. However, depending on the reaction conditions, quinoline derivatives were also produced as byproducts (vide infra). The photoinduced

Multicomponent syntheses of pyrazoles via (3 + 2)-cyclocondensation and (3 + 2)-cycloaddition key steps

• Ignaz Betcke,
• Alissa C. Götzinger,
• Maryna M. Kornet and
• Thomas J. J. Müller

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2024–2077, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.178

Negishi-coupling-enabled synthesis of α-heteroaryl-α-amino acid building blocks for DNA-encoded chemical library applications

• Matteo Gasparetto,
• Balázs Fődi and
• Gellért Sipos

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1922–1932, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.168

• , this approach was applied to the synthesis of N-substituted pyrazoles and poly-substituted isothiazoles [24][25]. Glycine derivatives can be reacted with indoles using copper catalysis or metallophotoredox catalysis [26]. Le et al. reported the use of the same approach for imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines [27

Solvent-dependent chemoselective synthesis of different isoquinolinones mediated by the hypervalent iodine(III) reagent PISA

• Ze-Nan Hu,
• Yan-Hui Wang,
• Jia-Bing Wu,
• Ze Chen,
• Dou Hong and
• Chi Zhang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1914–1921, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.167

• zwitterionic water-soluble hypervalent iodine reagent (phenyliodonio)sulfamate (PISA). In water, PISA is strongly acidic, and the pH value can reach 2.05 in a saturated aqueous solution. With PISA, various indoles have been synthesized via C–H amination of 2-alkenylanilines involving an aryl migration

The Groebke–Blackburn–Bienaymé reaction in its maturity: innovation and improvements since its 21st birthday (2019–2023)

• Cristina Martini,
• Muhammad Idham Darussalam Mardjan and
• Andrea Basso

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1839–1879, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.162

• conditions. The study was started by reacting 2-aminopyridines, indole-3-carbaldehyde 62 and ethyl isocyanoacetate (63) under open air in the presence of Yb(OTf)3 catalyst (Scheme 24, conditions a). The results showed that fused polycyclic indoles 67 were obtained (albeit in lower yields, 25%) instead of the

• underwent cyclization and dehydration to produce linked polyheterocyclic indoles 75. The authors managed to prepare five adducts in 15–33% yield. Another mechanistic scenario occurred at higher temperature (Scheme 25, conditions b). The secondary amine of diol 73 substituted both secondary alcohols to

Primary amine-catalyzed enantioselective 1,4-Michael addition reaction of pyrazolin-5-ones to α,β-unsaturated ketones

• Pooja Goyal,
• Akhil K. Dubey,
• Raghunath Chowdhury and
• Amey Wadawale

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1518–1526, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.136

• fascinating but at the same time challenging. Pyrazoles [4][5][6][7], benzofurans [34], and indoles [35][36] are popular scaffolds as they are prevalent in many bioactive molecules. Compounds bearing both pyrazole and indole moieties or pyrazole and benzofuran moieties (Figure 1) are highly attractive since

Synthesis of 4-functionalized pyrazoles via oxidative thio- or selenocyanation mediated by PhICl₂ and NH₄SCN/KSeCN

• Jialiang Wu,
• Haofeng Shi,
• Xuemin Li,
• Jiaxin He,
• Chen Zhang,
• Fengxia Sun and
• Yunfei Du

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1453–1461, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.128

• of efforts to developing efficient thio/selenocyanation approaches [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Specifically, a plethora of synthetic strategies have been reported for the thiocyanation of heteroaromatic compounds including arenes, indoles, carbazoles, pyrroles, and imidazopyridines [42][43

Phenotellurazine redox catalysts: elements of design for radical cross-dehydrogenative coupling reactions

• Alina Paffen,
• Christopher Cremer and
• Frederic W. Patureau

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1292–1297, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.112

• simple oxygen atmosphere (Scheme 1a) [30][31][32]. Most recently, we also showed that phenotellurazines could catalyze the oxidative dimerization of indoles, likewise under a simple oxygen atmosphere. 2-Methoxyphenotellurazine PTeZ2 proved to be the optimal catalyst in the latter case (Scheme 1b) [33

• cross-dehydrogenative coupling of indoles [33], in the same benchmark reaction. To our satisfaction, PTeZ2 proved to be the most active catalyst so far in this study (3aa, 99% after 3 h). In order to further optimize the catalyst structure, we then reduced the catalytic loading by one order of magnitude

Domino reactions of chromones with activated carbonyl compounds

• Peter Langer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1256–1269, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.108

• 2-salicyloyl-8H-thieno[2,3-b]indoles 39a–i in mostly moderate to good yields (Scheme 21) [41]. The formation of these products can be explained, similarly to the formation of products 35, by 1,4-addition of the carbon atom of 38 to the chromone to give intermediate AB, cyclization by nucleophilic

Manganese-catalyzed C–C and C–N bond formation with alcohols via borrowing hydrogen or hydrogen auto-transfer

• Mohd Farhan Ansari,
• Atul Kumar Maurya,
• Abhishek Kumar and
• Saravanakumar Elangovan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1111–1166, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.98

• yields up to 85%. The proposed mechanism suggested the formation of the dehydrogenation product and the desired product due to the metal–ligand cooperation (Scheme 39). de Ruiter and co-workers studied PCNHCP-based manganese complexes for the α-methylation of ketones and indoles with methanol as a C1

• -Alkylation of heterocyclic compounds with alcohols Functionalized heterocyclic compounds are omnipresent structural skeletons in bioactive compounds [82]. Remarkably, the alkylation of indoles and quinolines received significant interest since they are common compounds in pharmaceutical and agrochemical

• industries [83][84][85]. Various manganese catalysts have been reported (Figure 4) for the C-alkylation of heterocyclic compounds with several alcohols, including indoles and quinolines. In 2017, Kirchner’s group established a new method for the aminomethylation of aromatic compounds with secondary amines

Carbonylative synthesis and functionalization of indoles

• Alex De Salvo,
• Raffaella Mancuso and
• Xiao-Feng Wu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 973–1000, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.87

• powerful method for the introduction of a C1 building block into organic substrates using carbon monoxide, its surrogates, or compounds able to act as carbon monoxide sources [11]. In recent years, many groups have used the carbonylation approach for the synthesis and functionalization of indoles, which is

• what we are discussing in this mini-review. Review Carbonylative synthesis of indoles Synthesis of indoles by Pd(0)-catalyzed carbonylation reaction of halide compounds Processes using organic halides as their starting materials involving the oxidative addition of Pd(0) to C–X bonds to give Ar–PdII–X

• selective cyclization to the indole derivative in the presence of Pd(OAc)2 and AlCl3. A variety of indole derivatives were synthetized in good isolated yields (Scheme 3). Synthesis of indoles by Pd(II)-catalyzed carbonylation reaction Oxidative carbonylation reactions, as well as all other types of

Discovery and biosynthesis of bacterial drimane-type sesquiterpenoids from Streptomyces clavuligerus

• Dongxu Zhang,
• Wenyu Du,
• Xingming Pan,
• Xiaoxu Lin,
• Fang-Ru Li,
• Qingling Wang,
• Qian Yang,
• Hui-Min Xu and
• Liao-Bin Dong

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 815–822, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.73

• efficient chemoenzymatic synthesis of DMTs or drimanyl indoles [44]. (a) Representative bioactive drimane-type sesquiterpenoids (DMTs). (b) Reported biosynthetic pathways of DMTs from fungi. Chemical structures and HPLC analysis. (a) Chemical structures of isolated sesquiterpenes 2–4 from S. clavuligerus

Synthesis and biological profile of 2,3-dihydro[1,3]thiazolo[4,5-b]pyridines, a novel class of acyl-ACP thioesterase inhibitors

• Jens Frackenpohl,
• David M. Barber,
• Guido Bojack,
• Birgit Bollenbach-Wahl,
• Ralf Braun,
• Rahel Getachew,
• Sabine Hohmann,
• Kwang-Yoon Ko,
• Karoline Kurowski,
• Bernd Laber,
• Rebecca L. Mattison,
• Thomas Müller,
• Anna M. Reingruber,
• Dirk Schmutzler and
• Andrea Svejda

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 540–551, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.46

• quinolines and indoles [24], pyridines [25], and imines [26], the reactions of 5 and 15c with ammonia borane (3 equiv) in the presence of a catalytic amount of B(C6F5)3 in toluene as an aprotic solvent at a temperature of 80 °C afforded aminoboranes 17b (R1 = F) and 17c (R1 = CH3) as main products along with

Switchable molecular tweezers: design and applications

• Pablo Msellem,
• Maksym Dekthiarenko,
• Nihal Hadj Seyd and
• Guillaume Vives

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 504–539, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.45

• constant is higher for the second complexation than the first. The authors later reported a similar system with triazole linkages between the porphyrin and the indoles that act as binding sites for the metal (square planar complex) [76]. These tweezers present a fluorescence quenching upon copper(I

Ligand effects, solvent cooperation, and large kinetic solvent deuterium isotope effects in gold(I)-catalyzed intramolecular alkene hydroamination

• Ruichen Lan,
• Brock Yager,
• Yoonsun Jee,
• Cynthia S. Day and
• Amanda C. Jones

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 479–496, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.43

• protodeauration pathways [15]. Widenhoefer, however, then showed that even HOTf acid catalyzed hydroaminations proceed with anti-selectivity [31]. In contrast, additions of water and indoles to alkenes are proposed to proceed via a Lewis acid-assisted Bronsted acid mode and computations suggest that gold is not