Oxidative Rearrangement of Secondary Amines Using Hypervalent Iodine(III) Reagent

A hypervalent iodine(III) reagent mediated oxidative skeletal rearrangement reaction of secondary amines is reported. The transformation, which uses PhI(OAc)2 in CF3CH2OH, was found to be highly efficient at inducing the direct 1,2-C-to-N migration of secondary amines. This method offers facile and divergent access to polycyclic and macrocyclic indole-fused compounds. The synthetic potential of the method is also demonstrated through its application to several substrates, including secondary as well as primary amines.