New Approach for the Construction of the Coumarin Frame and Application in the Total Synthesis of Natural Products

Abstract A new synthetic approach is described for building the coumarin scaffold through the Lewis acid‐promoted cyclization of novel aryl 3‐(dimethylamino)prop‐2‐enoates 2a – 2f . The latter precursors were prepared via aminomethylenation of the corresponding aryl acetates 4a – 4f with the Bredereck reagent. This approach was used for the synthesis of biologically active natural compounds 1a – 1f , through a three‐step procedure starting from the corresponding phenols.