Enantioselective Construction of Cyclic Enaminone‐Based 3‐Substituted 3‐Amino‐2‐oxindole Scaffolds via Catalytic Asymmetric Additions of Isatin‐Derived Imines

The first catalytic asymmetric construction of the cyclic enaminone‐based 3‐substituted 3‐amino‐2‐oxindole scaffold with potential bioactivity has been developed via chiral phosphoric acid‐catalyzed enantioselective addition reactions of cyclic enaminones to isatin‐derived imines, which afforded a series of cyclic enaminone‐based 3‐substituted 3‐amino‐2‐oxindoles in high yields and excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% yield, 97% ee). The investigation of the reaction mechanism suggested that it was facilitated by a dual hydrogen‐bonding activation mode between the two substrates and the chiral phosphoric acid. Besides, this method could be utilized for a large‐scale synthesis with maintained enantioselectivity. This approach will not only offer a useful method for enantioselective construction of the cyclic enaminone‐based 3‐substituted 3‐amino‐2‐oxindole scaffold, but also enrich the research on catalytic asymmetric addition reactions of isatin‐derived imines by using electron‐rich olefins as nucleophiles. More importantly, a preliminary evaluation on the cytotoxicity of some selected products revealed that two of the enantio‐pure compounds exhibited moderate to strong cytotoxicity to A549, 786‐0, ECA109 and BT474 cancer cell lines.