Abstract:The insertion of an aryne into a C À S bond can suppress the addition of an S nucleophile to the aryne in the presence of palladium. Catalyzed by Pd(OAc) 2 , a wide range of a-carbamoyl ketene dithioacetals readily react with arynes to selectively afford functionalized 2-quinolinones in high yields under neutral reaction conditions by a C À S activation/ aryne insertion/intramolecular coupling sequence. The attractive feature of the new strategy also lies in the versatile transformations of the alkythio-substituted quinolinone products.
Transition-metal-catalyzedCÀSbondactivationforCÀCandC-heteroatom bond formation has fascinated organic chemists for decades.[1] A variety of organosulfur compounds have been utilized and have great potential in these processes [1][2][3] because of their ready availability, stability, and structural diversity, as compared to the corresponding organic halide coupling partners.[4] Cross-coupling chemistry with thioorganics along with new reaction patterns, exceptional selectivity, or unique reactivity would be highly desirable.Inspired by palladium-catalyzed desulfitative coupling of thioesters, [1c, 2a-d] we recently became interested in transitionmetal-catalyzed CÀS bond cleavage for CÀC bond formation during our research [5] on ketene dithioacetals, which are easily prepared and widely applied as organic intermediates.[6] We have already achieved copper-catalyzed desulfitative C À C cross-coupling of a-oxo ketene dithioacetals with arylboronic acids, [3a] and then palladium-catalyzed/copper-mediated desulfitative annulation of 2-methylthiobenzofurans with 2-hydroxyphenylboronic acids.[3b] More recently, a CÀS bond activation protocol for Heck-type cyclization of a-alkenoyl ketene dithioacetals was also developed in our group.[3c] To take advantage of the synthetic power of functionalized ketene dithioacetals [3,5,6] and the tremendous applications of arynes in cyclization reactions, [7] we envisioned the palladiumcatalyzed CÀS activation as the key to developing an annulation between arynes and a-carbamoyl ketene dithioacetals (1; Scheme 1) by the insertion of an aryne into a C À S bond. Furthermore, the expected products are 2-quinolinones (3) which have provoked great interest in chemical and biological fields.[8] However, the challenge of this strategy lies in avoiding the addition of the strongly nucleophilic sulfur atom in the substrates to the arynes (Scheme 1 A), and instead favoring insertion of the arynes into the CÀS bond. [9,10] To the best of our knowledge, transition-metal-catalyzed CÀS bond cleavage for aryne insertion has been seldom reported.[10]Herein, we report that arynes can react with ketene dithioacetals by palladium-catalyzed C À S bond activation followed by cyclization to produce 2-quinolinones, but they remain inactive towards the nucleophilic S-containing group (Scheme 1 B). The new synthetic method is also highlighted by the versatile transformations of the 4-functionalized 2-quinolinones, which are not easily obtained starting from the cor...