A practical and expedient synthesis of 2-heterocycle (C–N bond) substituted 4-oxo-4-arylbutanoates

A practical and expedient synthesis of the titled compounds is described. Using the same simple procedure (DBU was reacted with the mixture of an alkynol and a nitrogen heterocycle in CH2Cl2 at rt for 16 h), a wide variety of diverse NH-containing nucleophiles such as pyrazoles, indazoles, indoles, imidazoles and benzoimidazole, oxazolidinone and benzooxazolone, triazoles, phthalimides, and N-formyl anilines, have been reacted with 4-aryl-4-hydroxy-alkynyl esters to afford good yields of desired products. This reaction proceeded by the DBU catalyzed redox isomerization of ethyl 4-aryl-4-hydroxybut-2-ynoate to (E)-ethyl 4-aryl-4-oxobut-2-enoate, followed by the DBU catalyzed aza-Michael reactions with the isomerized product in one-pot.