Pyrroloquinolines, a New Platform for Developing Organic Photosensitizers: When Synthetic Methodology Meets Photophysics † .

New molecular architectures with triplet sensitization properties can have a big impact on photochemistry and photobiology. In their recent work, de Bonfils et al. have tackled this challenge in a very systematic way using a powerful synthetic strategy. This consists of an elegant yet practical organocatalyzed cyclization/oxidation rearrangement sequence which they now apply to the synthesis of pyrroloquinolines, a new scaffold for photosensitizers. However, beyond this new class of compounds, the strategy has potential to produce a myriad of compact organic chromophores with promising photoinduced intersystem crossing properties. The study therefore provides interesting clues to serve the rational design of biocompatible molecular photosensitizers but also raises puzzling questions on the intriguing excited state reactivity of these molecular architectures.