Starting from simple anilines and ester arylpropiolates, an efficient one-pot synthesis of 2-arylindole-3-carboxylate derivatives has been developed through copper-mediated sequential hydroamination and cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) reaction. The initial hydroamination of anilines to ester arylpropiolates in benzene can proceed in a stereoselective manner to give ester (Z)-3-(arylamino)acrylates
Multisubstituted indoles were synthesized via a one-pot tandem copper-catalyzed Ullmann-type C–N bond formation/intramolecular cross-dehydrogenativecoupling process at 130 °C in DMSO. The methodology allows practical and modular assembly of indoles in good to excellent yields from readily available aryl iodides and enamines.