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synthesis and catalytic functionalization of biologically active indoles

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Abstract<br />

Selective reduction <strong>and</strong> <strong>functionalization</strong> <strong>of</strong> diethyl<br />

1-alkyl-1H-indole-2,3-dicarboxylates<br />

Iliyas Ali Sayyed, Karolin Alex, Annegret Tillack, Nicolle Schwarz,<br />

Anke Spannenberg, Dirk Michalik, Matthias Beller*<br />

Leibniz-Institut für Katalyse e.V. an der Universität Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 29a, D-18059 Rostock, Germany<br />

Received 25 January 2008; received in revised form 28 February 2008; accepted 3 March 2008<br />

Available online 7 March 2008<br />

A convenient <strong>and</strong> highly selective reduction <strong>of</strong> easily accessible indole-2,3-dicarboxylates is described. Ten different 1-alkyl-2-formyl-1Hindole-3-carboxylates<br />

are obtained in high yield <strong>and</strong> represent interesting building blocks for novel <strong>indoles</strong>.<br />

Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.<br />

1. Introduction<br />

Indole <strong>and</strong> its derivatives have been termed as ‘privileged<br />

pharmacologic structures’ since they bind to many biological<br />

receptors with high affinity. 1 In addition, the indole moiety<br />

is found in numerous natural products <strong>and</strong> is an important<br />

building block <strong>of</strong> several families <strong>of</strong> alkaloids. 2 Many <strong>of</strong><br />

them have significant biological activity such as Indomethacin<br />

3 (anti-inflammatory), Vincristine 4 (anti-cancer), Fluvastatin<br />

5 (cholesterol-lowering), Vinblastine 6 (anti-cancer), <strong>and</strong><br />

tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid 7 (Scheme 1).<br />

N<br />

H<br />

Tryptophan<br />

CO2H<br />

NH2<br />

Cl<br />

N<br />

CO2H<br />

O<br />

Me<br />

Indomethacin<br />

Scheme 1. Selected <strong>biologically</strong> <strong>active</strong> <strong>indoles</strong>.<br />

Due to their importance as one <strong>of</strong> the most represented<br />

building blocks in natural products <strong>and</strong> known marketed<br />

drugs, there is a continuing interest in the development <strong>of</strong><br />

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 (0)381 1281113; fax: þ49 (0)381<br />

12815000.<br />

E-mail address: matthias.beller@catalysis.de (M. Beller).<br />

0040-4020/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.<br />

doi:10.1016/j.tet.2008.03.011<br />

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com<br />

Tetrahedron 64 (2008) 4590e4595<br />

www.elsevier.com/locate/tet<br />

improved methods for the <strong>synthesis</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>indoles</strong>. 8,9 In recent<br />

years especially domino sequences provided efficient complementary<br />

access to various <strong>indoles</strong>. 10 Though, many <strong>catalytic</strong><br />

methods exist for the preparation <strong>of</strong> <strong>indoles</strong>, still the most<br />

famous route for the construction <strong>of</strong> the indole ring constitutes<br />

the Fischer indole <strong>synthesis</strong>. 9<br />

For some time, we have been interested in the improvement<br />

<strong>and</strong> exploration <strong>of</strong> methodologies for the <strong>synthesis</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />

<strong>functionalization</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>indoles</strong>. For example, we developed a<br />

titanium-catalyzed as well as zinc-mediated <strong>synthesis</strong> <strong>of</strong> functionalized<br />

tryptamines <strong>and</strong> tryptophol derivatives starting from<br />

commercially available arylhydrazines <strong>and</strong> alkynes. 11 More<br />

recently, we reported also a transition-metal-free one-pot <strong>synthesis</strong><br />

<strong>of</strong> indole-2,3-dicarboxylates 1 from arylhydrazines <strong>and</strong><br />

acetylene dicarboxylates. 12 Based on this work, we became interested<br />

in the selective reduction <strong>of</strong> indole-2,3-dicarboxylates<br />

(Scheme 2). Obviously, such a selective protocol would <strong>of</strong>fer<br />

direct access to a variety <strong>of</strong> novel indole derivatives. Here,<br />

we report our results on this project.<br />

Clearly, reduction <strong>of</strong> carboxylic acids, esters, <strong>and</strong> amides is<br />

an essential tool for the <strong>synthesis</strong> <strong>of</strong> aldehydes, alcohols, <strong>and</strong><br />

amines. 13 Especially, selective reduction to aldehydes is important,<br />

as the highly re<strong>active</strong> formyl group can be easily employed<br />

in numerous CeC-, <strong>and</strong> CeN-coupling reactions as<br />

well as other transformations.<br />

As shown in Scheme 2, chemoselective reduction <strong>of</strong> 1H-indole-2,3-dicarboxylates<br />

1 could provide different functionalized

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