Cover Picture: Expedient Synthesis of N‐Fused Indoles: A CF Activation and CH Insertion Approach (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 43/2009)

Abstract

N-Fused indoles appear in the structures of various biologically active molecules, but synthesis of the fused-ring substructure has proved difficult. T. Akiyama and co-workers describe in their Communication on page 8070 ff. a new route in which a niobium carbenoid is generated by niobium-catalyzed activation of the normally inactive C–F bonds of a CF3 group. The carbenoid then undergoes insertion into a neighboring C(sp3)H bond adjacent to a nitrogen atom to furnish the N-fused indole skeleton.