Understanding selectivity of nucleophilic addition to β-formyl-α-haloenoates: A synthetic and theoretical investigation

The reactions of β-formyl-α-haloenoates with nitrogen-centered nucleophiles are described. DFT calculations have been used to better understand what factors influence and determine the chemo- and regioselectivity of the nucleophilic addition of amines to such systems. The easy synthetic approaches to the functionally substituted enoate derivatives including tertiary dehydroamino acid esters and furan-2(5H)-ones provides highlight of this work.