A concise new synthetic route to furo[2,3-b]indolines has been developed by taking advantage of the reactivity of N-alkenyloxyindole intermediates. These compounds spontaneously undergo [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement followed by cyclization to form hemiaminals as single diastereomers. Tin-promoted N-hydroxyindole formation followed by conjugate addition to activated alkynes provides simple and modular access to a diverse array of N-alkenyloxyindoles and their corresponding furo[2,3-b]indolines. Microscale high-throughput experimentation was used to facilitate investigation of the scope and tolerance of this transformation and related studies on the nucleophilic aromatic substitution and rearrangement of N-hydroxyindoles with halogenated arenes have also been evaluated.
Machine learning meets mechanistic modelling for accurate prediction of experimental activation energies