Intermolecular domino Michael/aldol reactions of α,β-unsaturated esters, aromatic aldehydes, and various nucleophiles promoted with a catalytic amount of a guanidine base in DMSO

Abstract In DMSO, a catalytic amount of Barton's base (2-t-butyl-1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine, BTMG) effectively catalyzed intermolecular three-component reactions of α,β-unsaturated esters, aldehydes, and carbon-, sulfur-, or nitrogen-pronucleophiles to give three-component addition products with the formation of two new σ-bonds: pronucleophiles and aldehydes reacted with α,β-unsaturated esters at their β-positions and α-positions, respectively. Mechanism studies suggested that these reactions proceeded by the first intermolecular Michael addition of anionic nucleophiles that were formed from pronucleophiles with a catalytic amount of BTMG, followed by intermolecular aldol reactions of transient ester enolates even in the presence of more than stoichiometric amounts of acidic pronucleophiles. High nucleophilicity over Bronsted basicity of transient enolates in polar solvents was observed for transient ester enolates rather than ketone enolates.