Palladium-catalyzed sequential cyanation/n-addition/N-arylation in one-pot: efficient synthesis of luotonin A and its derivatives.

With the catalysis of palladium, a number of 2-bromo-N-(2-iodobenzyl)benzamides underwent sequential cyanation/N-addition/N-arylation leading to the efficient construction of isoindolo[1,2-b]quinazolin-10(12H)-ones in a two-stage, one-pot manner. This method also allowed the convenient synthesis of luotonin A and its derivatives.