A facile and convenient synthesis of trisubstituted (E)-α,β-unsaturated esters was developed by improving our previously established method. The new method circumvented the separation of the intermediates, which have an activating group of the hydroxyl group in β-hydroxy esters, furnishing α,β-unsaturated esters in shorter steps than the previous method: an acetylation of β-hydroxy group and subsequent E1cB reaction proceeded in tandem. In addition, the new method can not only employ a diastereomeric mixture of the substrate for the E1cB reaction, it has a wide substrate scope as well, which would enable the synthesis of various trisubstituted (E)-α,β-unsaturated esters.
Keywords: E1cB reaction; stereoselective synthesis; tandem acetylation-E1cB reaction; trisubstituted (E)-α,β-unsaturated ester.