Heteroaromatic annulation studies on 2-[bis(methylthio)methylene]-1,3-indanedione: efficient routes to indenofused heterocycles

2-[Bis(methylthio)methylene]-1,3-indanedione has been shown to be a useful three carbon 1,3-dielectrophilic synthon for the highly efficient regiospecific synthesis of a variety of indenofused five- and six-membered heterocycles via heteroaromatic annulation. The methodology has been further elaborated to the corresponding N,S-acetals leading to amino substituted heterocycles, thus providing further point of diversity in the newly synthesized heterocyclic frameworks. Further, the facile access to cytotoxic indeno[2,1-c]quinolin-7-ones and the novel polycyclic heteroaromatics demonstrates the versatility of heteroaromatic annulation protocol via α-oxoketene-S,S-acetal in generating novel biologically important polycyclic heteroaromatics.