Herein, a unified and divergent palladium-catalyzed carbonylative procedure for the direct synthesis of α,β-unsaturated thiolated and selenolated lactams is reported. This strategy enables the simultaneous construction of the lactam core and installation of valuable sulfur or selenium functionalities via a single catalytic operation. By employing simple propargylamine substrates together with diphenyl disulfide or diselenide under a carbon monoxide atmosphere, the corresponding lactams were formed in moderate to good yields with promising functional group tolerance.
Yin et al. (Wed,) studied this question.