Fused-Linked and Spiro-Linked N-Containing Heterocycles

Fused and spiro nitrogen-containing heterocycles play an important role as structural motifs in numerous biologically active natural products and pharmaceuticals. The review summarizes various approaches to the synthesis of three-, four-, five-, and six-membered fused and spiro heterocycles with one or two nitrogen atoms. The assembling of the titled compounds via cycloaddition, oxidative cyclization, intramolecular ring closure, and insertion of sextet intermediates-carbenes and nitrenes-is examined on a vast number of examples. Many of the reactions proceed with high regio-, stereo-, or diastereoselectivity and in excellent, up to quantitative, yield, which is of principal importance for the synthesis of chiral drug-like compounds. For most unusual and hardly predictable transformations, the mechanisms are given or referred to.