Oxazolones Perkin reaction

An important variation of the Perkin reaction is the Erlenmeyer azalactone synthesis exemplified by equation (4), involving condensation of an aldehyde and an N-acylglycine derivative in the presence of acetic anhydride and sodium acetate. Although this reaction, analogous to the classical Perkin condensation, was initially limited to the use of aromatic aldehydes, Baltazzi and Robinson reported that the use of lead acetate and THF allowed the preparation of several azalactones derived from aliphatic aldehydes (equation 15). The results for the condensation of several aldehydes and ketones with hippuric acid (28) under these conditions are shown in Table 2. The reaction proceeds through the intermediate (26) (intramolecular condensation of 25), which reacts with the aldehyde in Perkin fashion to provide the so-called azalactone product (Scheme 8). It is the formation of such oxazolones from acylamino acids which is be-... 

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