YZhi-Qin Liang, Dong-Ling Wang, Han-Ming Zhang, and Song Ye*

The N-heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed cascade reaction of enals with malonates to give bicyclic δ-lactones was developed. The cyclopentane- and cyclohexane-fused δ-lactones with three continued stereocenters were obtained in high yields with excellent diastereo- and high enantioselectivities.

This work has been published in Org. Lett. 2015, 17, 5140−5143.