High-pressure accelerated asymmetric organocatalytic Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indoles with enones: application to quaternary stereogenic centers construction.

An organocatalytic Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indoles with α,β-unsaturated ketones was found to be efficiently accelerated under high-pressure conditions with a low loading of chiral primary amine salts with good yield and enantioselectivity up to 90%. This approach also allows, for the first time, selected indole derivatives containing quaternary stereogenic centers to be obtained from prochiral β,β-disubstituted enones with an enantioselectivity up to 80%.