An improved, simple, and facile synthesis of 3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1H)-ones by employing three-component, one-pot condensation reaction of β-keto ester, aromatic aldehydes, and urea or N-methylurea using LaCl3/ClCH2COOH as an inexpensive and green chemistry catalyst system under solvent-free conditions described. Compared with the classicalBiginelli reaction conditions, this method has the adv...

An arylrhodium(I) species selectively reacts with the cyano group of ethyl cyanoformate to afford the corresponding alpha-keto ester in good yield.

Nucleophilic additions of lithium keto and ester enolates and mono- and bifunctional Grignard reagents to artemisitene provided C-16-derived artemisinin monomers, dimers, trimers, and tetramers whose antimalarial and cytotoxic activities have been evaluated.

A Michael-type reaction of β,γ-unsaturated α-keto ester and α-nitro ketone was established. With a thiourea catalyst derived from cinchona alkaloid, the reactions afford products in 47-94% yields with 68-96% ee.

New β-keto ester substituted stilbene derivatives have been synthesized and cyclized with selenium electrophiles in the presence of Lewis acids. This now allows access to 1,2,3,4-tetrasubstituted naphthalene derivatives as cyclization and rearrangement products.

Traditional therapeutics to treat bacterial infections have given rise to multi-drug resistant pathogens, which pose a major threat to human and animal health. In several pathogens, quorum sensing (QS)-a cell-cell communication system in bacteria-controls the expression of genes responsible for pathogenesis, thus representing a novel target in the fight against bacterial infections. Based on th...

Sodium borohydride is a well known reducing agent. In methanol at room temperature formyl and keto groups are readily reduced to alcohol groups, while ester and carboxyl groups, carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen double bonds are only reduced with difficulty (2, 17). Of the groups present in chlorophyll b the C3 formyl and the C9 keto groups should be amenable to reduction, while the C2 vinyl an...