Recent Advances in the Exploitation of Kojic Acid in Multicomponent Reactions

Kojic acid, one of the most widespread 3-hydroxypyran-4-one derivatives, displays a wide range of biological activities and found application in food as well as cosmetics industry. The synthesis of kojic acid derivatives has provoked great interest as an easily available and biologically active precursor among organic and medicinal researchers. Multicomponent reactions, involving three or more reactants in one-pot thereby resulting in a structure with functional diversity are efficient methods for the promotion of green chemistry in the context of modern drug discovery. They offer several advantages over conventional stepwise protocols like simplicity, efficiency, selectivity, convergence and atom economy. This review aims to highlight the versatility of kojic acid as an important synthon in multicomponent reactions for the construction of various biologically relevant compounds such as pyrano[3,2- b]chromenediones, pyrano[3,2-b]pyrans, pyrano[2′,3′:5,6]pyrano[2,3-b]pyridines, spiro[indoline-3,4’-pyrano[3, 2-b]pyrans, 2-substituted kojic acid conjugates, etc.