Download or read book Palladium-catalyzed Synthesis of Functionalized Aromatic Carbocycles and Heterocycles written by Alena Rudolph and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our group has expanded the synthetic utility of a palladium-catalyzed norbornene-mediated domino process first described by Catellani, to access a variety of fused aromatic heterocycles and medicinally relevant scaffolds.Chapter 1 describes a domino aromatic alkylation/Heck reaction sequence to generate tricyclic heterocycles. We significantly expanded the scope of this reaction to include a variety of heteroatoms including sulphur, nitrogen, benzylic oxygens and silicon. In particular, tricyclic analogues of mescaline, implicated in the treatment of disorders such as schizophrenia and depression, are easily accessed by this method.Chapter 2 examines the application of unactivated secondary alkyl halides as the aromatic alkylating reagent in this process. We have successfully demonstrated that secondary alkyl halides react intramolecularly and intermolecularly, and stereospecifically to afford a variety of polycyclic heterocycles. A number of termination steps have also proved to be compatible with this process, such as the Heck reaction, the direct arylation of heterocycles and a Buchwald-Hartwig amination. Notably, we used the structural features of these secondary alkyl halides to gain key stereochemical and mechanistic information for the overall palladium-catalyzed reaction.Chapter 3 describes a second area of research within our group that investigates the development of desymmetrizing ring-opening reactions via the addition of nucleophiles to strained meso bicyclic alkenes to afford tetrahydronaphthalene cores. Specifically the palladium-catalyzed, asymmetric ring opening of azabenzonorbornadiene with organoborons is investigated, which proceeds with moderate to good enantioselectivities depending on the nature of the boronic acid employed. Others in our group have recently demonstrated the utility of this methodology in the first asymmetric syntheses of a family of naturally occurring alkaloids, displaying a wide variety of pharmacological activities.