Synthesis of Aminobenzoic Acid Derivatives via Chemoselective Carbene Insertion into the −NH Bond Catalyzed by Cu(I) Complex

Phosphine ligand stabilized air-stable Cu­(I) complexes have been successfully used to functionalize the aromatic aminobenzoic acids in a chemoselective manner without implementing protection and deprotection strategy under mild reaction conditions. This chemoselective carbene insertion into −NH bond over −COOH and −OH bonds leads to the wide range of carboxy and hydroxy functionalized α-amino esters (27 examples). All of the isolated new products have been fully characterized using standard analytical methods.