The indole scaffold is found in a wide range of bioactive heterocycles and natural products. Moreover, the indole moiety is considered as the active principle in several alkaloids such as mitomycin C and reserpine. Thus, over the past decade, chemists are increasingly attracted towards the studies on the pharmacological and therapeutic activities of indole containing compounds. Furthermore, the molecular structures of well-known drugs such as sumatriptan, tadalafil, fluvastatin and rizatriptan are based on indole frameworks. This mini-review covers some of the significant and recent achievements of indole derivatives with respect to their biological activities up to 2015.

[structure: see text] The facile syntheses of enantiopure molecular rectangles using 1,8-bis(trans-Pt(PEt(3))(2)(NO(3)))anthracene and optically pure d- or l-tartrate are reported in high yields. These self-assembled macrocycles are unique examples where the phenomenon of induced chiral dichroism (ICD) has been observed in chiral metallosupramolecular assemblies.

A new method has been developed for the preparation of-oxoketene S,N-(A) and N,N-(B) ketals starting from-oxoketene dithioketals by employing mild conditions. Thus, lithioamino anions 2a-c, 4 and 6 are treated with-oxoketene dithioketals 1 to afford the corresponding S,N-ketals 3a-j, 5a-j, 7a-e and N,N-ketals 8a,b in good yields. The scope and steric orientations of the reaction have been investigated.