Iron-catalyzed aryl-aryl cross coupling route for the synthesis of 1-(2-amino)-phenyl)dibenzo[b,d]furan-2-ol derivatives and their biological evaluation

Naturally occurring dibenzofuran motifs represent promising lead structures for the development of novel antimycobacterial agents. Prompted by our recent development of cross dehydrogenative coupling using iron catalysis, we extended our strategy to synthesize 14 novel anilinodibenzofuranols and they were explored for anti-tubercular and cytotoxic activities. Consistent with our hypothesis, DBF-3, 14 and 16 exhibited promising activity against two strains (M. tuberculosis H37Rv and the clinical S, H, R, and E resistant isolate), while DBF-13, 18 exhibited selective inhibitory activity only against the clinical S, H, R and E resistant isolate. However, the compounds DBF-4 and DBF-8 showed promising and selective antitumor activity against the tested cancer cell lines.