Divergent reactivity in palladium-catalyzed annulation with diarylamines and α,β-unsaturated acids: direct access to substituted 2-quinolinones and indoles.

A palladium-catalyzed CH activation strategy has been successfully employed for exclusive synthesis of a variety of 3-substituted indoles. A [3+3] annulation for synthesizing substituted 2-quinolinones was recently developed by reaction of α,β-unsaturated carboxylic acids with diarylamines under acidic conditions. In the present work, an analogous [3+2] annulation is achieved from the same set of starting materials under basic conditions to generate 1,3-disubstituted indoles exclusively. Mechanistic studies revealed an ortho-palladation-π-coordination-β-migratory insertion-β-hydride elimination reaction sequence to be operative under the reaction conditions.