Quantum mechanical calculations (AM1, PM3, ab initio HF/3-21G, DFT(B3LYP/6-31G*) and MP2 //(B3LYP/6-31G*) have been used to study the inverse-demand synchronous concerted Diels-Alder reactions between dimethyl-1,2,4,5-tetrazine-3,6-dicarboxylate (diene) and a variety of dienophiles (ethylene, cyclopentadiene, 1-hexene, cyclohexene). All the molecular structures (reactants, transition states, intermediates and adducts) were optimized using the semi-empirical AM1 method. The calculated energies and volumes showed that the cycloaddition reaction followed a mechanism involving the formation of an intermediate, elimination of N 2 , and a 1,3-hydrogen shift adduct. The reaction energies of the systems were obtained by using semi-empirical AM1 calculations and showed good agreement with the experimental data. In contrast, calcula