A novel synthesis of diastereomerically pure spiro- oxindolopyrrolizi-dines and oxindolopyrrolidines via cycloaddition reactions of azome-thine ylides

An efficient one-pot three-component procedure for the synthesis of new chiral spiro oxindolo-pyrrolidines/pyrrolizidines with highly regio- and diastereo-enantio selective from 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides and chiral menthol-drived trans-cinnamic are described. The mechanism of the reaction is discussed on the basis of the assignment of the absolute configura-tion of one of the cycloaddition products, which was obtained by single crystal X-ray analysis.