It is an important intermediate involved in the synthesis of chemical and pharmaceutical products such as vitamin B, 3,4-substituted pyridine, 5-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-4-methylthiazole. In presence of 2-acetylbutyrolactone, reaction of tert-butyl isocyanide with dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylates leads to the formation of dialkyl (E)-2-{(tert-butylamino)[2-oxo-4,5-dihydro-3(2H)-furanylidene]methyl}-2-butenedioates.1 Moreover, reaction of 2-acetylbutyrolactone with thiosemicarbazide and 3-(2-bromo-acetyl)-chromen-2-one in anhydrous ethanol produced 3-{2-[5-hydroxyl-4-(2-hydroxyl-ethyl)-3-methyl-pyrazol-1-yl]-thiazol-4-yl}-chromen-2-one in good yields.2 In addition, 2-acetylbutyrolactone can also function as the raw material for synthesizing pilocarpine that is a leading therapeutic agent for the treatment of narrow and wide angle glaucoma.3 Besides, this chemical can also act as a fluorogenic reagent in the quantitative spectrofluorometric determination of primary amines, which has been demonstrated to be equally accurate and precise as the officially or other reported methods.4
