Metallaphotoredox-Catalyzed Decarboxylative sp3–sp3 Cou-pling with Iso(thio)chroman and Tetrahydroisoquinoline Cores

Abstract

A mild and direct strategy for the 1-alkylation of isochroman, isothiochroman and tetrahydroisoquinoline cores has been achieved through the combination of photoredox and nickel catalysis. The resulting motifs are commonly found in bioac-tive compounds and natural products, but accessibility has to date been limited to scaffolds containing electron-rich aro-matic rings. The approach reported here, using an easily syn-thesized carboxylic acid building block in a cross-coupling manifold, enables rapid access to diverse scaffolds with broad functional group tolerance on a gram scale.