By starting from a common substrate, 2-aminobenzaldehyde, both acridines and acridones were prepared. The former were generated in high yields by copper-catalyzed N-arylation followed by acidmediated cyclization while the latter were obtained by double copper-catalyzed N-arylation followed by cyclization under the same reaction conditions. Moreover, acridine was subjected to deprotometalation by recourse to a lithium-zinc base and converted to the corresponding 4-iodo derivative, which was involved in copper-catalyzed couplings with pyrrolidinone and pyrazole. Finally, addition of pyrazole, indole and carbazole onto the 9 position of bare acridine was improved. While moderate biological activity was noticed in melanoma cells growth inhibition, the newly prepared compounds feature interesting photophysical properties which were evaluated in a preliminary study. moderate cytotoxic activity against liver cancer cell line WRL-68 (IC50 = 86 M). Finally, citrusinine-I is a natural acridone reported as herbicide model due to its ability to inhibit photosynthesis (Figure 1, right). 1bAcridines and acridones are traditionally prepared by using as key step copper-catalyzed C-N bond formation reactions between 2-halogenobenzoic acids and anilines. 1a,b Among other methods reported to access acridines, 2 we can cite (i) the Bernthsen synthesis in which diphenylamine and carboxylic acids are heated in the presence of zinc chloride as catalyst to furnish 9-substituted acridines, 3 (ii) palladium-catalyzed N-arylation/intramolecular Heck reaction of 2-bromostyrenes with 2chloroanilines developed by Buchwald and co-workers, 4 (iii) [4+2] annulation of 2-aminoaryl ketones with in situ formed arynes (by treating 2-(trimethylsilyl)aryl triflates with cesium fluoride) documented by Larock and co-workers to afford unsymmetrical acridines, 5 (iv) palladium-catalyzed consecutive C=C bond and C-N bond formations between 1,2-dibromobenzenes and N-tosyl hydrazones of 2aminophenyl ketones reported by Wang and co-workers, 6 (v) the appoach of Ellman and co-workers who employed aromatic azides with aromatic imines in a [3+3] annulation reaction (Rh(III)-catalyzed amination followed by intramolecular electrophilic aromatic substitution and aromatization), 7 (vi) palladium-catalyzed N-arylation/Friedel-Crafts reactions of anilines reported by Guo, Wang and coworkers from 2-formylphenyl triflates and anilines, 8 and by Xu and co-workers from 2bromobenzaldehydes, 9 both in the presence of copper salts, (vii) tandem N-arylation/Friedel-Crafts reactions of 2-aminophenones with diaryliodonium salts 10 and arylboronic acids, 11 (viii) Wang's 12 and Wu's 13 annulation-aerobic oxidative dehydrogenation and Deng's palladium-catalyzed reaction 14 of 2aminophenones with cyclohexanones, and (ix) Jiang's nitrogen/iodine exchange of diaryliodonium salts with sodium azide 15 (Scheme 1).
4Scheme 1. General ways reported in the literature to access acridines. Among a few other specific syntheses, 16 the general ways to access acridones include (i) acidinduce...