Oxidative cleavage, degradation from 1,2-diols

The reaction network proposed by Ouchiyama et al. for carbazole [316] considers an early oxidation product of degradation to be 2 -aminobiphenyl-2,3-diol. This compound is believed to result from dioxygenase attack at the 1 and 9a positions, resulting in the formation of l,9a-dihydroxy-l-hydrocarbazole. The reaction might be reversed by spontaneous cleavage of the adjacent C—N bond to restore aromaticity and yield back the 2 / -aminobiphenyl-2,3-diol. 

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