Aniline pivalamides

Gschwend reported the ortho lithiadon of aniline pivalamides and subsequent addition to nitriles and carbonyls in 1979. A few years later, Wender used a similar aryllithium (H), obtained by metal-halogen exchange, in a new synthesis of indoles (Scheme 7). An analogous metalation occurs when A -phenylimidazol-2-ones are treated with LDA in THF at -78... 

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