Diastereoselectivity in unusual intermolecular tandem Michael reactions

Highly stereoselective consecutive or tandem Michael (MIMI) reactions are reported. A variety of initial nucleophiles react with chiral acylated 1,3-oxazolidin-2-ones to generate a reactive enolate. The enolate then reacts stereoselectively with a second equivalent of the acylated 1,3-oxazolidin-2-one to afford ‘dimeric’ adducts. The adducts have three new contiguous stereogenic centers formed with a high level of control. Single crystal X-ray crystallographic analysis confirmed this controlled formation of novel tandem acyclic conjugate addition or MIMI products in several examples.