A New and Simple Synthesis of 1-Hydroxyindole Derivatives

A new and straightforward simple synthesis method for 1-hydroxyindole derivatives is developed.Since the appearance of pioneering papers by Acheson and co-worker^,^ reporting the synthesis of 1-methoxyindole (32), we have been much interested in the chemistry of 1-hydroxyindoles, because the presence of l-methoxyindoles as natural products 3prompted us to imagine that the corresponding unstable 1-hydroxyindoles are actually present in plants and microorganisms and play an important role i n .4Based on these ideasS4 we have sofar elaborated a convenient one pot synthesis method 5d'f for 3a and applied it for preparing various l-hydroxyindoles,5 l-methoxypimprinine,6 1--