“…Previously, we described the synthesis of a variety of 5-substituted imidazo [1,5-a]thiazin-7(3H)-ones, e.g., the base moiety of 6-thiaoxanosine (1), as potential antiviral and anticancer agents. 1,2 During our attempts to synthesize the base moiety of 5-vinyl-7-thione analogue of 1, namely, 5-ethenylimidazo [4,5-d] [1,3]thiazin-7(3H)thione (3), via 2 by the known cyclization procedure (Chart 1), we unexpectedly discovered an interesting ring-closure reaction which led to the synthesis of imidazo [1,5-a]pyrimidin-2(1H)-ones. Thus, when ethyl 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxylate (4) was acylated with acryloyl chloride, we obtained 8-ethoxycarbonyl-1,2,3,4tetrahydroimidazo [1,5-a]pyrimidin-2(1H)-one (7a; Scheme 1) instead of 5-acryloylamino derivative 2.…”