This review comprehensively explores the design, synthesis, and pharmacological activities of carboline isomers reported between 2000 and 2025, with a particular emphasis on their key bioactivities, encompassing anticancer, neuroprotective, antiparasitic, and antimicrobial.
In this review, we provide a brief yet comprehensive account of the metal-catalysed syntheses of four isomeric carbolines (α/β/γ/δ) along with the mechanistic pathways involved in the aforesaid strategies.
This review presents a detailed analysis of β-carbolines as promising multi-target antimalarial agents.
A highly efficient enantioselective direct C–H functionalization of β-carbolines via a Minisci-type radical process under a photo-redox and chiral phosphoric acid cooperative catalytic system has been disclosed.
An efficient Ir-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of tetrahydro-γ-carboline affords chiral cis-hexahydro-γ-carboline derivatives with high yields and enantioselectivities, enabled by a ZhaoPhos ligand and applicable to lumateperone intermediates.