Selective palladium-catalyzed C-F activation/carbon-carbon bond formation of polyfluoroaryl oxazolines.

A selective palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction of polyfluorophenyl oxazolines through ortho C-F activation is described. It was found that reactions with DPPF as the ligand occurred much faster than those with other ligands. A variety of arylboronic acids including challenging functionalized arylboronic acids such as enolizable ketones, aldehyde, cyano, ester, and trifluoromethyl groups were tolerated with the reaction conditions.