Acid-promoted rearrangement of arylmethyl azides: applications toward the synthesis of N-arylmethyl arenes and polycyclic heteroaromatic compounds

An acid-promoted Aubé–Schmidtʹs rearrangement of arylmethyl azides provides a useful in situ iminium ion intermediate, which can be efficiently trapped by various nucleophiles. We report here the reaction of this iminium ion with aromatic nucleophiles to give N-arylmethyl arenes and the reaction with heteroaromatic compounds to give fused polycyclic heteroaromatic products in a formal [4+2] cycloaddition. The short synthesis of isocrytolepine, an antimalarial agent, further demonstrated the utility of this process.