0009-3122/13/4907-0968©2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 968 Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds, Vol. 49, No. 7, October, 2013 (Russian Original Vol. 49, No. 7, July, 2013) A SIMPLE AND EFFICIENT APPROACH TO THE SYNTHESIS OF FUROPYRAN DERIVATIVES: FOUR-COMPONENT REACTION OF ISOCYANIDES WITH ARYLIDENE-SUBSTITUTED MELDRUM'S ACID A. Habibi 1 * , E. Sheikhhosseini 2 , N. Taghipoor 1 A four-component (3+1) reaction of an alkyl isocyanide with arylidene-substituted Meldrum's acid in CH 2 Cl 2 at room temperature produced furo[3,4-b]pyran-5(7H)-one derivatives in good yields. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by IR, NMR spectroscopy, mass spectra, and elemental analysis. Keywords: alkyl isocyanide, arylidene-substituted Meldrum's acid, furo[3,4-b]pyran-5(7H)-one, fused-ring systems, multicomponent reactions. Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) are powerful tools for the synthesis of complex biologically relevant molecules. The atom economy of MCRs, their convergent character, operational simplicity, structural diversity [1, 2], and complexity of the resulting molecules make this type of reactions exceptionally useful for discovery and optimization processes in the pharmaceutical industry. Isocyanide-based multicomponent reactions (IMCRs) are easily performed using readily available starting materials and tolerate a variety of functional groups. A plethora of variations and subsequent transformations provide access to a fairly large number of unique structures that would otherwise require lengthy preparations. Therefore, IMCRs present an ideal tool for accessing large and diverse chemical space and have been used since the advent of combinatorial chemistry to construct such libraries of compounds [3]. During the past decade, IMCRs gained significant interest within the scientific community as an efficient, convenient, time-saving, and atom-economical approach to a variety of drug-like small heterocyclic molecules [4-12]. The furopyran skeleton is frequently found in various natural and biological products. Waol A (FD-211) has a broad spectrum of activity against cultured tumor cell lines [13]; the closely related compounds TAN- 2483A and TAN-2483B show strong c-Src kinase inhibitory action and a potential for treatment and prevention of osteoporosis [14]. The antibacterial Massarilactone B was isolated by Gloer from the freshwater aquatic fungus Massarina tunicata [15]. Usually these and similar compounds are synthesized via multistep approach, often under very forcing reaction conditions [16-17]. _______ *To whom correspondence should be addressed, e-mail: habibi@tmu.ac.ir. 1 Kharazmi (Tarbiat Moallem) Uinversity, 43 Mofateh Ave., Tehran 15719-14911, Iran. 2 Young Researchers and Elites Club, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Published in Khimiya Geterotsiklicheskikh Soedinenii, No. 7, pp. 1040-1045, July, 2013. Original article submitted January 4, 2013.