Facile regiodivergent synthesis of spiro pyrrole-substituted pseudothiohydantoins and thiohydantoins via reaction of [e]-fused 1H-pyrrole-2,3-diones with thiourea.

A highly divergent synthesis of regioisomeric thiohydantoins and pseudothiohydantoins spiro-fused to a pharmacologically valuable pyrrole-2-one fragment involving the reaction of [e]-fused 1H-pyrrole-2,3-diones with thioureas was developed. The obtained spiro pseudothiohydantoin derivatives were found to undergo a pseudothiohydantoin-thiohydantoin rearrangement. The reactions were shown to proceed under catalyst-free conditions in good yields, and the products were isolated without applying preparative chromatography methods.