Dedicated to Professor H. Suschifzky on the occasion of his 80th birthday (I.XII.95) Addition reactions of organometallic reagents with 4,4-disubstituted 1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiones were studied.Whereas the reactions with alkyllithium and alkyl Grignard reagents occurred in the thiophilic manner, the carbophilic addition was observed with allyllithium and ally1 Grignard reagents. A radical reaction mechanism is proposed for rationalizing these observations (Scheme 5). A radical cyclization of the prepared 5-allyl-4,5-dihydro-1,3-thiazole-5-thiol derivatives yielded 1,6-dithia-3-azaspiro[4.4]non-2-enes (
-C=S).In the reactions of 1 with organometallics, it was shown that organolithium reagents undergo thiophilic addition exclusively [ 101. In contrast, organocuprates only afforded products of carbophilic addition [ 111 [ 121. Products of carbophilic and/or thiophilic attack were obtained from the reaction of 1 with Grignard reagents, depending on the nature of the Grignard reagent and the solvent used in the reaction [lo].In this paper, we report on further results from addition reactions of organometallics with a variety of 2-alkyl-substituted 1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiones, in which some exceptions of the previously formulated rules were observed, and possible reaction mechanisms are discussed. Furthermore, the radical cyclization of some of the prepared 5-alkenyl-4,5-dihydro-1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiioles was studied.