Potassium tert-Butoxide Promoted Intramolecular Mizoroki-Heck-Type Radical Cyclization: Photoluminescence Properties and Application in Live Cancer-Cell Imaging

Privileged indole-fused phenanthridinones were synthe-sized by an inexpensive potassium tert-butoxide-promoted intramolecular Mizoroki-Heck-type radical cyclization. This method offers high atom- and step-economic C-C bond formation. An array of the synthesized compounds showed good photoluminescence properties, and could be successfully applied as fluorescent bioprobes for imaging of living cancer cells.

Automated summary

Privileged indole-fused phenanthridinones were efficiently synthesized via a potassium tert-butoxide-promoted intramolecular radical cyclization reaction. The synthesized compounds exhibited excellent photoluminescence properties and were successfully used as fluorescent bioprobes for live cancer cell imaging.