spectroscopy. The extensive interest has been focused on the influence of substituents as well as on the number, attachment position, and the nature of the substituents. The unknown shielding of the heterocyclic ring on the aromatic carbon atoms was determined and the averaged chemical shift increments were successfully used for the assignment of the aromatic moiety of the studied compounds. The presence of two chiral elements in compounds 16, 17, 20-21 resulted in the mixture of diastereomers and double sets of the resonances in NMR spectra.Keywords: N-aryl-β-alanines, tetrahydropyridones, NMR spectroscopy.N-Aryl-β-alanines and their derivatives possess a wide spectrum of biological activity [1-3]. The compounds under study are intermediate products in the synthesis of azetidinone, dihydroquinolone, benzodiazepine, imidazole, and dihydropyrimidinedione derivatives [4][5][6][7][8].In this paper we report a synthesis of 1-aryl-substituted tetrahydropyridones from N-aryl-β-alanines. N-Aryl-β-alanines 1-12 were used as starting compounds. These compounds were obtained from the corresponding arylamines and unsaturated acids by the method previously developed in our laboratory [5,7].1-Aryl-3-ethoxycarbonyl-1,4,5,6-tetrahydro-4(1H)-pyridones 13-21 and 3-acetyl-1-aryl-1,4,5,6tetrahydro-4(1H)-pyridones 22-24 were prepared from the corresponding N-aryl-β-alanines and ethyl acetoacetate or 2,4-pentanedione in refluxing toluene in the presence of a catalytic amount of hydrochloric acid. It is possible that condensation of NH group in β-alanine with 1,3-diketo compound takes place first, and then the intermediate compound undergoes cyclization resulting in the respective hydropyridone 13-24. The yield of the target compounds was not high, however the formed products were crystalline substances and were obtained from the reaction mixture easily.The products obtained were analyzed by NMR spectroscopy. The NMR spectral assignments have been made by the comparison of the spectra between themselves and with the related fragments, assuming the validity of the additivity of the substituent effects, their general characteristics and the signal intensities [9-10].
__________________________________________________________________________________________