ABSTRACT
2,3-Diaryl imidazolium salts, represented by 1 and 2, reacted with 2-ethanolamine or ethylenediamine to produce 2-aryl oxazolines or imidazolines 5–8 respectively. Their hydrolysis resulted in ring-opened ethylenediamine derivatives 9 and 10. The reduction of 1 and 2 produced partially reduced imidazolidines 11, 12 and 11 reacted further with tryptamine to provide 2,3,4,9-tetrahydro-1-phenyl 1H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole, 13. In all these reactions one-carbon units were successfully transferred to the nucleophilic acceptors, which mimic the one-carbon unit transfer function for tetrahydrofolate coenzymes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, China.