Quinazolinones, an important class of fused heterocyclic alkaloids has attracted high attention in organic and medicinal chemistry due to their significant and wide range of biological activities. There are approximately 150 naturally occurring quinazolinone alkaloids known till 2005. Several new quinazolinone alkaloids (∼55) have been isolated in the last decade. Natural quinazolinones with exotic structural features and remarkable biological activities have incited a lot of activities in the synthetic community towards the development of new synthetic strategies and approaches for the total synthesis of quinazolinone alkaloids. This review is focused on these advances in the chemistry of quinazolinone alkaloids in the last decade. This article covers the newly isolated quinazolinone natural products with their biological activities and the recently reported total syntheses of quinazolinone alkaloids from 2006 to 2015.

A novel bioinspired iron-catalyzed oxidative cross-coupling reaction between phenols and conjugated alkenes was developed. This method enables the direct coupling of phenols with styrene, α-alkyl- and α-arylstyrenes, β-alkyl styrenes, and stilbenes, thereby providing a new strategy for the preparation of the pharmacologically important 2,3-dihydrobenzofuran motif. In addition, this study revealed that under a different set of conditions an oxidative/addition dearomatization reaction of 1,1'-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL) with styrene can take place.

A chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective FeCl(3)/1,10-phenanthroline-catalyzed cross dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) reaction between phenols and α-substituted β-ketoesters was developed. The reaction creates a new quaternary carbon center within a polycyclic hemiacetal or polycyclic spirolactone architecture. The applicability of the new method to the synthesis of natural products was demonstrated by a possible biomimetic synthesis of the lachnanthospirone core.

An eosin Y photoredox catalyzed net redox neutral process for 3-sulfonylindoles via the anionic oxidation of sodium sulfinate salts and its radical cascade cyclization with 2-alkynyl-azidoarenes was developed with visible light as a mediator. The reaction offers metal and oxidant/reductant free, visible light mediated vicinal sulfonamination of alkynes to 2-aryl/alkyl-3-sulfonylindoles and proceeds via the generation of a sulfur-centered radical through direct oxidation of the sulfinate anion by an excited photocatalyst with a reductive quenching cycle. The mild conditions, use of an organic dye as photo-catalyst, bench stability and easily accessible starting materials make the present approach green and attractive.

An iron-based cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) approach was applied for the diversity-oriented synthesis of coumestrol-based selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), representing the first application of CDC chemistry in natural product synthesis. The first stage of the two-step synthesis of coumestrol involved a modified aerobic oxidative cross-coupling between ethyl 2-(2,4-dimethoxybenzoyl)acetate and 3-methoxyphenol, with FeCl3 (10 mol%) as the catalyst. The benzofuran coupling product was then subjected to sequential deprotection and lactonization steps, affording the natural product in 59% overall yield. Based on this new methodology other coumestrol analogues were prepared, and their effects on the proliferation of the estrogen receptor (ER)-dependent MCF-7 and of the ER-independent MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells were tested. As a result, new types of estrogen receptor ligands having an acetamide group instead of the 9-hydroxyl group of coumestrol were discovered. Both 9-acetamido-coumestrol and 8-acetamidocoumestrol were found more active than the natural product against estrogen-dependent MCF-7 breast cancer cells, with IC50 values of 30 and 9 nM, respectively.