Iodine-promoted five-component reaction using fragment assembly strategy to construct dihydrooxepines

An iodine-promoted fragment assembly strategy for the synthesis of fused heterocycles has been established. It provides an efficient route to construct pyrazolone-oxepine-pyrazoles from phenylhydrazines, aryl methyl ketones and acetoacetate esters. Notably, acetoacetate esters play two distinct pivotal roles in the five-component reaction by realizing the unique reactivities of methyl, methylene and carbonyl groups to construct 3-methyl-5-pyrazolone skeletons and by the reaction of methyl and carbonyl groups to form a C (sp3)-O bond.