Abstract:The first asymmetric N-allylic alkylation of hydrazones with Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) carbonates catalyzed by modified Cinchona alkaloids has been developed, affording N-substituted hydrazones in good yields with exclusive regioselectivities and excellent enantioselectivities. Subsequent transformations of the allylic alkylation products led to synthetically useful pyrazolidinones.Keywords: N-allylic alkylation; asymmetric catalysis; hydrazones; Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) carbonates; pyrazolidinones Hydrazones have gained in popularity over the last decades due to their significant applications in various aspects of chemistry. Investigations indicate that hydrazones possess antimicrobial, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiplatelet, and antitumoral activities.[1] NAlkylated tosylhydrazones represent one type of important building block in the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds [2] which have outstanding applications in chemistry and biology. Although tosylhydrazones are can be suitable nucleophiles in the synthesis of N-alkylated tosylhydrazones, research in this field mainly focused on employing tosylhydrazones as the source of diazo compounds under basic conditions.[3] As a result, the synthesis of N-alkylated tosylhydrazones remains underdeveloped.[4] To the best of our knowledge, there is no synthetic method for preparing enantioenriched N-alkylated tosylhydrazones so far.The asymmetric N-allylic alkylation of MoritaBaylis-Hillman (MBH) adducts represents a powerful C À N bond forming reaction.[5] Much remarkable work has been focused on this aspect since the first example of an asymmetric reaction of various nucleophiles with MBH carbonates was reported by Lu in 2004.[6] Due to the vigorous development of organocatalysis in the last decade, organocatalyzed asymmetric N-allylic alkylations of MBH adducts with different nucleophiles such as imines, [7] amides, [8] aliphatic amines [9] and nitrogen-containing aromatic rings [10] have also been reported. Most recently, Ding [11] and Liu [12] reported the palladium-catalyzed N-allylic alkylation of MBH adducts with simple aromatic amines through a p-allylpalladium complex. Considering the strong electron-withdrawing effect of the tosyl group, we wondered whether tosylhydrazone could be utilized as a suitable nucleophile to react with MBH carbonates for the construction of optically active N-alkylated tosylhydrazones. According to literature reports, this reaction may proceed by two different pathways as shown in Scheme 1. Herein, we communicate the first organocatalyzed regio-and enantioselective N-allylic alkylation of MBH carbonates with tosylhydrazones.Initially, tosylhydrazone 1a and MBH carbonate 2a were selected as the model substrates to investigate the regioselectivity of this reaction. The two adducts 3aa/4aa were obtained in 1:1 ratio when DABCO was employed as the catalyst in dichloromethane at room temperature. Encouraged by this preliminary result, we replaced DABCO by a series of chiral tertiary amine catalysts in the hope of developin...