Multicomponent Reaction (MCR)

Multicomponent reaction (MCR) is a synthetic methodology in which three or more reactants come together in a single reaction vessel to form a new product. The characteristic aspect of MCRs is that the final products contain almost all portions of substrates, generating almost no by-products. That makes MCRs an extremely ideal and eco-friendly reaction system. Target compounds can be obtained in one pot with much fewer steps. Therefore, MCRs have been paid much attention in various research fields, such as discovery of lead compounds in medicinal chemistry, or combinatorial chemistry.

There have been a number of reports on MCRs so far, and typical examples are described as below.