Imagine you are given the final cyclization product for a diels-alder reaction and asked which diene and dienophile were required to make the 6-membered ring in the first place. What do you do?
It turns out the process is a lot easier than you might think.
Concept #1: Diels-Alder Retrosynthesis
Here is a summary of those steps:
So now that we know the process, let's go ahead and apply it to the following molecules:
Example #1: Retrosynthesis
Example #2: Retrosynthesis