A Controlled Synthesis of Nature-Mimicking Benzofurans and their Corresponding Dimers

Benzofurans functionalized with hydroxy and acetyl functionalities are not only the core structures found in a large number of biologically important natural products, but also the vital precursors for several naturally occurring furanoflavonoids. Numerous synthetic methodologies are available in the literature for the ­synthesis of functionalized benzofurans but access to benzofurans with adjacent hydroxy and acetyl functionalities shows paucity of references. In this paper we report highly convenient synthesis of nature-mimicking benzofurans and their dimers from easily accessible precursors.