Facile synthesis of N-aryl pyrroles via Cu(II)-mediated cross coupling of electron deficient pyrroles and arylboronic acids.

N-Arylation of electron-deficient pyrroles has been achieved by cross-coupling with arylboronic acids at room temperature in the presence of stoichiometric amounts of copper(II) acetate. The generality of this reaction has been established with variously substituted pyrroles as well as boronic acids. A key intermediate in the synthesis of a matrix metalloprotease inhibitor has been achieved using this methodology.