Cooperative cascade catalysis by bovine serum albumin (BSA)-iodine allows for the first time the performance of C(sp(2))-H sulfenylation of indole from readily available thiophenol (-SH bond) via in situ generation/cleavage of disulfide (S-S bond) in air under aqueous conditions, whereas BSA or I2 individually do not permit this two step sequence to occur in the same pot towards C-S bond formation. This green cooperative protocol is extendable to sulfenylation of hydroxyaryls (i.e. 2-naphthol or 4-hydroxycoumarin) with diverse thiols (aryl/heteroaryl) without using any toxic metal catalysts, bases or oxidants, thus rendering the process environmentally and economically reliable. Further, the gram scale synthesis of a COX-2 inhibitor (3-(pyridin-2-ylthio)-1H-indole), regioselectivity and recyclability (up to four cycles) are the additional merits of this cooperative cascade bio-chemocatalytic (BSA-I2) protocol. Moreover, HPLC and ESI-MS provide powerful insights into the mechanistic aspects of the above cascade sulfenylation reaction.

Bifunctionalized indoles are an important class of biologically active heterocyclic compounds and potential drug candidates. Because of the lack of efficient synthetic methods, one pot cascade synthesis of these compounds is rare and remains a challenge. To expand this field, we herein disclose a step-economical and temperature tunable strategy wherein the synergistic effect between [hmim]Br-ArSO 2 Cl leads exclusively to the formation of 3-arylthio indole via sulfenylation of indole at room temperature, while heating the reaction mixture at 50 °C provided an unexpected 2-halo-3-arylthio indole with construction of C− S and C−S/C−X (X = Cl and Br) bonds without addition of any external halogenating agent via cascade sulfenylation−halogenation reactions under metal-oxidant-base-free conditions. Further, insight into the reaction mechanism provides an unprecedented observation wherein the synergistic interaction between [hmim]Br-ArSO 2 X in the presence of a catalytic amount of water generates arylsulfonic anhydride (ArSO 2 ) 2 O in situ as a new sulfur source along with the formation of [hmim]PTS as probed by NMR, ESI-MS, DART-MS, and HPLC studies. Notably, the mixture of bifunctionalized 2-halo(Br/Cl)-3-arylthio indole was smoothly diversified with privileged heterocycle triazole to provide 2-(1H-triazole-1-yl)-3-arylthio indole, which is an analogue of the potent indole-based anticancer agent.

Review covering the synthesis of 5- and 6-membered as well as condensed heteroarenes, focussing on the combinations in cooperative catalytic systems in strategies used to achieve selectivity and also highlights the mode of action for the cooperative catalysis leading to the synthesis of commercially and biologically relevant heteroarenes.

In this work, a new strategy to synthesize 3-sulfenyl/selenyl indole is reported wherein LCÀMS reveals a novel insight into synergistic cooperative effect of NaBH 4 -I 2 which allows cascade CÀN and CÀS/CÀSe bond formations via reduction-nucleophilic cyclization-chalcogenylation, three steps in one-pot, towards regioselective synthesis of diverse 3-chalcogenyl indoles including 5-bromo-3-[(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)thio]-1H-indole, a known lead anticancer compound, directly from 2-amino-phenacylchlorides and thiophenols or disulfides/diselenides in aqueous dioxane under transition-metal-free condition.