Synthesis of Fused sp-Enriched Imidazoles.

A synthetic approach to imidazoles annulated to saturated six-membered cycles featuring S, SO, NH, NCbz was developed. It was achieved by combining the Neber rearrangement and the Marckwald reaction. The Neber rearrangement applied to cyclic ketones allowed us to prepare in hundred gram quantities previously unknown α-amino ketones.