Recent Development on the Heterocycles Derived From In Situ Formation of Aryl Glyoxals by Iodine/DMSO Mediated Oxidation of Methyl Ketones

Abstract

Controlled oxidation of methyl-ketones to aryl glyoxals using Selenium dioxide and iodine is one of the useful transformation. Regardless the availability of many oxidation reagents, Iodine/DMSO system is very efficient and flexible. This system efficiently allows in situ formation of α-halo ketones and subsequently transforming them directly to useful products. The Iodine/DMSO system allows the selective CI and CO bond formation, substantially useful for converting them to other bond forming reactions and heterocycles useful in the synthetic and medicinal chemistry. Iodine/DMSO system could be an important alternative strategy due to sustainability, metal-free conditions, allowing multiple/linear domino reactions. This review will focus on heterocyclic systems smartly developed/manipulated by Wu group from methyl-ketones. The scope and limitations of this method and selected examples of applications for the synthesis of interesting molecules are discussed herein.