A summary of seven- and eight-membered ring sultam syntheses via three Michael addition reactions.

A series of seven- and eight-membered ring -N,O-, -N,N-, and -N,S-sultams were effectively synthesized via tandem reactions involving oxa-, aza-, and thia-Michael addition to vinyl sulfonamides. These reactions are summarized here since they enrich current synthetic methodologies for sultams and provide a good example of sultam diversity-oriented synthesis. All reactions proceeded under relatively mild and environmentally friendly conditions, and all these reactions are quite suitable for the rapid preparation of sultam compound libraries, which are valuable for biological activity explorations.