Palladium-catalyzed direct arylation of polysubstituted benzofurans

An efficient access to 2-substituted 3-arylbenzofurans through a palladium-catalyzed C3 direct arylation of 2-substituted benzofurans with aryl bromides is described. The scope and limitation of this reaction was studied. The method tolerates a variety of functional groups on the aryl halide and has been successfully extended to polysubstituted benzofurans to obtain the corresponding 3-arylbenzofurans with good to excellent yields.