One-Pot Synthesis of Benzene-Fused Medium-Ring Ketones: Gold Catalysis-Enabled Enolate Umpolung Reactivity

Enolate umpolung reactivities offer valuable and potentially unique alternatives over the enolate counterparts for the construction of ubiquitous carbonyl compounds. We disclose here that N-alkenoxypyridinium salts, generated readily upon gold-catalyzed additions of protonated pyridine N-oxide to C-C triple bonds of unactivated terminal alkynes, display versatile enolate umpolung chemistry upon heating and react with tethered arene nucleophiles in an S(N)2' manner. In a synthetically efficient one-pot, two-step process, this chemistry enables expedient preparation of valuable benzo-fused seven-/eight-membered cyclic ketones, including those of O-/N-heterocycles, from easily accessible aryl-substituted linear alkyne substrates. The reaction yields can be up to 87%.