Described herein is the development of a new synthetic route to cyclic amidines from quinolines. The borane-catalyzed 1,4-hydrosilylation of quinoline was utilized for the dearomatization of the quinolines. The dearomatized enamine intermediate was subsequently reacted with a broad range of organic azides to produce the corresponding cyclic amidines (3,4-dihydroquinolinimines) via a [3 + 2] cycloaddition pathway. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggested that the hydride shift was involved during the cycloaddition.

In this study, a convenient strategy to synthesize six-membered­ cyclic amidines from isoquinolines and pyridines has been developed. Borane-catalyzed hydrosilylation of each N-heteroarene was utilized as a dearomatizing tool. Substrate scope is broad with respect to both isoquinolines and pyridines, with various reaction pathways depending on the substitution pattern of the N-heteroarenes. The reaction mechanism and reactivity of each class of N-heteroarenes has been discussed. The resulting six-membered (Z)-sulfonyl amidine products are rarely reported and are mostly unprecedented. The scalability of this method and versatility of the cyclic amidine products are also presented.

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We describe the (3 + 2) cycloaddition reaction of endocyclic N-silyl enamines and N,N′-cyclic azomethine imines. This process utilized the versatile endocyclic N-silyl enamine intermediates from the dearomative hydrosilylation of Nheteroarenes. The resulting tetracyclic pyrazolidinone structure was synthesized by a straightforward and atom-economical process. We also discussed the plausible origins of the different reactivity and endo/exo selectivity in terms of the structures of each proposed transition state. The successful gram-scale synthesis demonstrated the synthetic utility.