FeCl3-Catalyzed Allylation Reactions onto 3-Hydroxy-2-oxindoles: Formal Total Syntheses of Bis-cyclotryptamine Alkaloids, (±)-Chimonanthine, and (±)-Folicanthine.

An FeCl3-catalyzed efficient strategy for the allylation reactions of 3-hydroxy-2-oxindoles with allyltrimethylsilane has been developed. The reaction affords a variety of 2-oxindoles having quaternary center at the pseudobenzylic position in an operationally simple and inexpensive procedure. Control experiments using enantioenriched 3-hydroxy-2-oxindole show that the reaction proceeds through in situ generated 2H-indol-2-one (8). The methodology presents an efficient and concise access to the pyrroloindoline alkaloids (±)-deoxyeseroline (1a), (±)-esermethole (1b), (±)-physostigmine (1c), (±)-phenserine (1d), and (±)-physovenine (1e). Eventually, we extrapolated the scope of this methodology to the formal total syntheses of dimeric cyclotyrptamine alkaloids (±)-chimonanthine (3a), (±)-folicanthine (3c), and (±)-calycanthine (4).