Ningjie Wu

Rhodium or Ruthenium‐Catalyzed Oxidative CH/CH Cross‐Coupling: Direct Access to Extended π‐Conjugated Systems

Doubling up: a chemo- and regioselective oxidative cross-coupling between various N-heteroarene-containing arenes and heteroarenes has been carried out by rhodium- or ruthenium-catalyzed twofold C-H activation, to deliver an array of highly functionalized π-conjugated systems.

Preferential Formation of Homochiral Helical Sandwich‐Shaped Architectures through the Metal‐Mediated Assembly of Tris(imidazoline) Ligands with a Set of d3–d10 Transition‐Metal Ions

A novel type of chiral tris-monodentate imidazolinyl ligands ((S,S,S)-4 and (R,R,R)-4) has been achieved in good yields. The ligands show a strong tendency to induce the generation of the discrete sandwich-shaped M(3)L(2) architectures with programmed helicity through the edge-directed complexation with a series of d(3)-d(10) transition-metal ions, while taking advantage of the steric hindrance of the bulky substituents of the imidazoline rings to avoid the formation of extended metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). In spite of different coordination geometries, monovalent metal ions (e.g. Ag(+)), divalent metal ions (e.g. Pd(2+), Cu(2+), Cd(2+), Zn(2+), Co(2+), Mn(2+), and Ni(2+)), and even trivalent metal ions (e.g. Fe(3+) and Cr(3+)) exhibit isostructural coordination. Installation of stereocenters fused onto the imidazoline rings results in favored handedness of the self-assemblies through the expression of molecular chirality into supramolecular helicity. In the crystal structures of [M(3){(S,S,S)-4}(2)], the self-assembly has to adopt the M form to relax the van der Waals repulsions of the phenyl and isopropyl groups. The replacement of (S,S,S)-4 with (R,R,R)-4 exclusively affords the opposite helicity (P). These results should provide important insights for the design of chiral helical capsule-like assemblies.

Transition‐Metal‐Catalyzed CH Bond Functionalizations: Feasible Access to a Diversity‐Oriented β‐Carboline Library

Diversification of the β-carboline skeleton has been demonstrated to assemble a β-carboline library starting from the tetrahydro-β-carboline framework. This strategy affords feasible access to heteroaryl-, aryl-, alkenyl-, or alkynyl-substituted β-carbolines at the C1, C3, or C8 position through three categorically different types of transition-metal-catalyzed CC bond-forming reactions, in the presence of multiple potentially reactive positions. These site-selective functionalizations include; 1) the Cu-catalyzed C1/C3-selective decarboxylative C sp 3C sp 2 and C sp 3Csp coupling of hexahydro-β-carboline-3-carboxylic acid with a CH bond of a heteroarene or terminal alkyne; 2) the chelation-assisted Pd-catalyzed C1/C8-selective CH arylation of hexahydro-β-carboline with aryl boron reagents; and 3) the chelation-assisted Pd-catalyzed C1/C3-selective oxidative CH/CH cross-coupling of β-carboline-N-oxide with arenes, heteroarenes, or alkenes. The saturated structural feature of the hexahydro-β-carboline framework can increase reactivity and control site selectivity. The robustness of these approaches has been demonstrated through the synthesis of hyrtioerectine analogues and perlolyrine. We believe that these strategies could provide inspiration for late-stage diversifications of bioactive core scaffolds.