Organocatalytic C−H Bond Arylation of Aldehydes to Bis-heteroaryl Ketones

The Chemistry Cascade

Qiao Yan Toh, Andrew McNally, Silvia Vera, Nico Erdmann and Matthew Gaunt
J. Am. Chem. Soc.
DOI: 10.1021/ja400051d

The synthesis of ketones bearing a diverse range of aryl and heteroaryl functionality is of great importance to the medicinal chemistry industry as they can be readily converted into structural motifs commonly found in medicinal agents.

A novel approach to these scaffolds has been developed by Gaunt et al who exploit the inherent electrophilicity of diaryliodonium salts by using them to trap carbogenic nucleophiles to form carbon–aryl bonds. The driving force for this research is the lack of known methods for the preparation of bis-heteroaryl ketones. The authors set themselves the challenge of developing an organocatalytic method for the regioselective diaryl ketone formation which is tolerant of a broad range of hetreoaromatic nuclei derived from diaryliodonium salts and carbogenic nucleophiles. This was achieved by using a commercially available NHC-organocatalyst with DMAP as…

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