The brucine N-oxide promoted Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reaction of vinyl ketones with aldehydes has been achieved. The corresponding asymmetric version of MBH reaction was also investigated, and the electron-deficient aryl aldehydes have emerged as suitable reaction partners for vinyl ketones; where proline was employed as a co-catalyst. In this dual catalyst system, proline is believed to fo...

[reaction: see text] A study of the effect of Michael acceptor stereochemistry on the efficiency of intramolecular Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reactions has been performed. The reactions were catalyzed by a phosphine, and the reaction substrates studied were enones containing a pendant aldehyde moiety attached at the beta-position of the alkene group. In all cases examined with PPh3 as the cata...