doi:10.1039/c7qo00858aengMeazza, M.Polo, V.Merino, P.Rios, R.Synergistic catalysis: enantioselective cyclopropanation of alkylidene benzoxazoles by Pd(ii) and secondary amine catalysis. Scope, limitations and mechanistic insightART-2018-105222The reaction of alkyl-benzoxazoles with enals has been reported using a synergistic approach. It consists of the activation of enals with a secondary amine catalyst and the activation of benzoxazoles with a metal Lewis acid. This approach has also been applied to the synthesis of cyclopropanes with excellent results. We demonstrated the applicability of this reaction in a cascade reaction (cyclopropanation + ring opening) that circumvents some of the limitations of the simple Michael addition between alkyl-benzoxazoles and enals. Finally, mechanistic studies have been reported to explain the stereoselectivity of the cyclopropanation reaction that renders an unusual cis conformation.2018http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/7584510.1039/c7qo00858ahttp://zaguan.unizar.es/record/75845oai:zaguan.unizar.es:75845info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/E10info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/CTQ2016-76155-ROrganic Chemistry Frontiers 5, 5 (2018), 806-812All rights reservedhttp://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess