Pyrrole, acylation acetylenedicarboxylate

Pyrrole and its simple derivatives do not react easily as dienes. Pyrrole itself only combines with dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate (DMAD, dimethyl but-2-ynedicarboxylate) under high pressure and then it is by C-2 substitution. However, A-acylpyrroles, such as A-acetyl- and N- tert-butoxycarbonyl)pyrrole, do undergo Diels-AIder addition reactions. Here, internal resonance within the acyl group reduces the availability of the lone-pair electrons, formally on nitrogen, to delocalize into the ring, thus making the carbon unit more diene-like (Scheme 6.12). 

While the cycloaddition of oxazole with acetylene is a well-established method for furan synthesis [36], the corresponding reaction of 5-amino oxazole was unknown at the outset of this work. As shown in Eq. (3) of Scheme 15.19, the reaction of 24b with 3-phenyl-2-propynoyl chloridephenylpropioloyl chloride (55a) proceeded smoothly to provide the 5,6-dihydro-furo[2,3-c]pyrrol-4-one (56) in greater than 95% yield. A triple domino sequence involving acylation/intramolecular DA cycloaddition/retro DA could explain the reaction outcome. That the domino process was initiated by acylation was evidenced by the fact that 24b failed to react with dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate (DMAD) under the identical conditions. 

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