Ring-fused carbazoles

In 1996, Ito et al. reported the isolation of clauszoline-A (167) and clauszoline-B (168) from the acetone extract of the stem bark of C. excavata collected in Singapore (74). These alkaloids represented the first, naturally occurring 2,8-dioxygenated-3-formylcarbazole alkaloids with a dimethylpyran ring fused to C-7 and C-8 of the carbazole nucleus. The extracts of the leaves and bark of this tree have been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of snakebites and abdominal pain (74). One year later, the same group isolated another pyrano[2,3-fl]carbazole alkaloid, clauszoline-H (169), from the roots of the same natural source in Japan (47) (Scheme 2.34). 

In 1991, Furukawa et al. reported the isolation of pyrayafoline B (170) from the stem bark of M. euchrestifolia collected in May in Taiwan (87). In the same year, the same group isolated a further pyrano[2,3- ]carbazole alkaloid, pyrayafoline E (171), from the stem bark of M. euchrestifolia. Pyrayafoline E was isolated from Nature in racemic form (70). These alkaloids are the first members of the naturally occurring 2,7-dioxygenated-3-methylcarbazole alkaloids having a dimethyl pyran ring fused to C-6 and C-7 of the carbazole nucleus (70,87) (Scheme 2.35). 

The furo[3,4-3]indoles undergo cycloaddition reactions with NPMI, maleic anhydride, and DMAD in the presence of -TsOH to give the fused carbazoles 125-129, products of the subsequent in situ ring-opening of the oxobridge of the intermediary cycloadducts (Scheme 12) <1996JOC6166>. 

The 7r-electron excessive character of pyrrole and indole renders both systems extremely susceptible to electrophilic attack and the fused benzene rings of carbazole also undergo electrophilic substitution more readily than does an unsubstituted benzene ring. In contrast, the 2/7-isoindole system only survives intact during electrophilic substitution reactions under the mildest of conditions and the system is more susceptible to [ 4 + 2] cycloaddition reactions than is pyrrole. 1,1-Disubstituted IH-isoindoles generally undergo nucleophilic addition-elimination reactions across the 2,3-bond or yield products derived from an initial electrophilic attack at the 2-position. 

B. Indoles and Carbazoles in a Fused Benzo Ring 1. Adjacent to Nitrogen... 

This article deals with the chemistry of carbazoles, and except for their formation from carbazoles as illustrations of the chemistry of carbazoles, it specifically excludes that of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-, 1,2,3,4,4a,9a-hexahydro-, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8-octahydro carbazoles, etc., because from the viewpoint of chemical reactivity, these are indoles, anilines, pyrroles, and so on. This article also excludes carbazoles with additional fused aromatic or heteroaromatic rings, again except for the formation of such systems as illustrations of carbazole reactivity. The physical and spectroscopic properties are not covered. 

Five-membered rings are also readily synthesized using this coupling methodology, enabling the production of dibenzo[M]fused heterocycles such as dibenzo-furans [2, 7], carbazoles [7, 8] (Scheme 1, G = O, NR respectively), and related compounds [8, 9]. Carbazoles are important structural motifs found in pharmaceuti-... 

In practice, we have utilized it for the analysis of molecular systems comprised of 3 to 5 fused benzene rings. Our discussion in this document is limited to the following compounds phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(e)pyrene, benzo(a)pyrene, and dibenz(a,h)anthracene. The structures for these compounds are presented in Table I. It is important to note that the method has also been adapted to the determination of several other PAH compounds (e.g., benzo(c)phenanthrene, perylene, 3-methylcholanthrene, carbazole, 7H-dibenzo(c,g)carbazole, and indeno(l,2,3-cd)pyrene). 

Bicyclic systems. The benzo-fused pyrrole heterocycles 13-15 are analogues of naphthalene with carba-zole 16 having an electronic relationship to phenanthrene. The systematic names show the position of the benzenoid ring but the common names indolizine 13, indole 14, isoindole 15, and carbazole 16 (Figure 1) are still widely used. The benzo derivatives of furan and thiophene are named in a similar manner, but their common names have largely fallen into disuse. For the benzo[7>] systems 17 and 20, the [b is commonly omitted. 

We have studied the reaction of similar cyclic -substituted enaminones which yielded indolones when the reaction was carried out in acetic acid and the quinones had lower oxidation potential, thus preventing prior oxidation of the enaminones. Secondary aminomethylene derivatives of cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone and cycloheptanone reacted with the quinones to presumably form intermediate spiro compounds, as a consequence of normal enaminone chemistry. However, this was unexpectedly followed by rearrangement with ring expansion to indolones (equation 158). In this way carba-zoles, cycloheptindoles and cyclooctindoles can be obtained by a simple entry to this class of indoles, although partially in low yields222-224. Due to their bifunction-ality the produced indol-2-ones are versatile synthons for fused heterocycles (e.g. triazepino- and pyrazino-carbazoles) which become easily accessible225,226. 

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