“…In particular, octahydroindoles are found as the core of the aeruginosin family of marine natural products (see Scheme 1 for the structure of aeruginosin 298A), which show interesting biological properties as inhibitors of serine proteases. [12] We first examined the reactivity of bromoalkene 4 a (Scheme 2), which was synthesized as a racemic single diastereoisomer in four steps from cyclopentene. [13] Compound 4 a is a particularly challenging substrate because the nitrogen substituent contains several types of C À H bonds that could potentially be activated: primary C sp 3 ÀH a bonds, a tertiary C sp 3 ÀH b bond adjacent to a nitrogen atom, two types of secondary C sp 3 ÀH c, d bonds including more-acidic benzylic protons (H d ), and arylic C sp 2 ÀH e bonds.…”