Nitrogen scanning is central to medicinal chemistry, yet N-positional variants and N-H analogues often require de novo synthesis. We report a nitrene-based, two-step one-pot formal N-H insertion into indenones to access isoquinolinones. N-Aminophthalimide, activated by PIDA, aziridinates the C═C bond and the resulting N-NPhth intermediate undergoes acid-promoted rearrangement in one pot. The method tolerates diverse substrates, including previously unreactive 2-alkyl and strongly electron-poor enones, and enables easy deprotection to N-H isoquinolinones.
Li et al. (2026) studied this question.