Liu Jie-Jie, Cheng Liang, Huang Hong-Yan, Wei Feng, Wang Dong, Liu Li
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Function, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Org Biomol Chem. 2017 Jun 14;15(23):5078-5088. doi: 10.1039/c7ob00904f.
Chromone skeletons are widespread among natural products as well as bioactive molecules. Here, we describe an unprecedented reaction of furo[3,4-b]chromen-9-one with malononitrile to afford 3-(tetrahydrofuran-2-yl)-4H-chromen-4-ones. Experimental data suggest that a sequence of Michael/retro-Michael/nucleophilic addition is involved in this unprecedented transformation.