Abstract
The main purpose of this review is to present a literature survey on the reactivity of 8-hydroxyquinoline and its derivatives toward alpha-cyanocinnamonitrile or ethyl alpha-cyanocinnamate derivatives, which leads to the formation of a variety of 4H-pyrano[3,2-h]quinoline derivatives. The reactions of the synthesized beta-enaminonitriles and beta-enaminoesters with different electrophilic followed by nucleophilic reagents were also explored. Some of these reactions provided successful routes to produce biologically important privileged structures.