<p><strong>Objectives. </strong>To prepare new N-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolin-4-yl) pyrrolidin-2-one molecules and to characterize them by spectroscopic methods. <strong>Materials and methods. </strong>All reagents were purchased from Aldrich, commercial grade. The purity of the products and the composition of the reaction mixtures were monitored by thin layer chromatography over Silufol UV<sub>254</sub> chromatoplates (0.25 mm). Product isolation and purification were performed by column chromatography (SiO<sub>2</sub>), using ethyl acetate. <strong>Results.</strong> Preparation of new N-(2-nitrophenyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolin-4-yl) pyrrolidin-2-ones has been achieved via the one-pot synthesis, based on a BiCl<sub>3</sub>-catalyzed imino Diels-Alder cycloaddition reaction of toluidine, N-vinylpyrrolidin-2-one and 4-nitro- or 3-nitrobenzaldehydes. The structure of the pyrrolidine derivatives was confirmed by <sup>1</sup>H nmr and <sup>13</sup>C nmr studies, in addition to inverse-detected 2D NMR experiments and monocrystal X-ray diffraction. <strong>Conclusions. </strong>An efficient, economic, and fast synthetic route (multi-component imino Diels-Alder reaction) was employed in the construction of several new tetrahydroquinoline derivatives, useful and attractive rigid skeleton with well-defined stereochemistry.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Key words: </strong>tetrahydroquinoline derivatives, N-substituted pyrrolidin-2-ones, three component imino Diels-Alder reaction, one-pot synthesis.</p>
A theoretical investigation on the regioselectivity of the intramolecular hetero Diels-Alder and 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of 2-vinyloxybenzaldehyde derivatives
