The interaction of N-arylmaleimides with N-substituted biguanides and amidinothiourea gave new substituted imidazolinones and thiazolinones.Substituted imidazolinones and thiazolinones are known to possess a wide range of biological activity [1][2][3]. At the same time, the presence of several reactive functional groups in the structure offers opportunities for using these compounds as substrates in the synthesis of new heterocyclic compounds. On the other hand, N-arylmaleimides are frequently used for molecular design of various heterocyclic linearly linked and condensed matrices [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Previously it has been demonstrated that N-arylmaleimides react as C(3)-electrophiles with various 1,4-bisnucleophiles, resulting in the formation of six-membered heterocyclic systems: piperidinones [6], hydrogenated thiazinones [11][12], and oxazinones [13]. At the same time, arylmaleimides react with 1,3-bisnucleophiles less predictably and may serve as С(3)-electrophiles, forming five-membered heterocyclic systems: pyrrolidines [4,8], imidazolinones [7], thiazolinones [14-16], or serve as С(4)-electrophiles, leading to six-membered heterocycles, respectively [7-9, 17]. Mixtures of five-membered and sixmembered heterocyclic systems are often formed [7,9].The goal of this work was to study recyclization reactions of N-arylmaleimides in the presence of N,N-and N,S-polynucleophiles, such as N-substituted biguanides and amidinothiourea.Despite the fact that N-substituted biguanides 1а-c represent polynucleophilic compounds, cyclization with N-arylmaleimides involved the guanidine fragment. The reactions were performed by refluxing the starting materials in methanol for 5-7 h. Apparently, the first step involved addition of the amino group in terminal guanidine fragment of bisguanide to arylmaleimide double bond [18], while in the second step the succinimide fragment was attacked by the nucleophilic nitrogen atom of imino group, resulting in recyclization with the formation of imidazolinone ring. This reaction was used for the synthesis of a range of substituted N-aryl-(4-oxo-4,5-dihydro-1Н-imidazol-5-yl)acetamides 2а-e. The use of dioxane or DMF as solvent decreased the yields of target products due to the occurrence of many side reactions.