Electrophilic aryl spiroannulation induced by diaryliodonium salts: efficient synthesis of [5,5]-spiro lactone-lactam scaffolds from α-cyanocarboxylates

Spirocyclic architectures represent one of the privileged three-dimensional scaffolds in pharmaceutical chemistry and drug discovery, while the new-skeletal synthesis of spiromolecules from simple starting materials remains a challenging task. Here, we report a first diaryliodonium salts mediated electrophilic aryl spiroannulation reaction from simple substrates α-cyanocarboxylate. With this strategy, a broad spectrum of new [5,5] spiro-fused skeletons could be efficiently constructed in one step via Cu-catalyzed cascaded N-arylation-acylation and etheral skeleton rearrangement reaction. The key point of this transformation was the intramolecular electrophilic cyclization due to the nucleophilicity of O-atom and electrophilicity of α-C induced by diaryliodonium salts. With this protocol, the more challenging activation of ether bonds was achieved via diaryliodonium salts-mediated. This method has the major advantages of a broad substrate scope and excellent functional group compatibility. Further synthesis elaboration was performed using substrate with steric hindrance to showcase the versatility of this methodology.