A facile approach to diosgenin and furostan type saponins bearing a 3beta-chacotriose moiety.

Combination of a one-pot coupling technique and the use of benzyl ethers as permanent protecting groups offered a short and simple route to dioscin-type saponins. This strategy in combination with a mild reductive opening procedure of the spiroketal function in diosgenin also offered a convenient approach to bidesmosidic furostan type saponins. Me(3)N.BH(3)/AlCl(3) promoted acetal opening of 3-O-TBDMS-protected diosgenin gave the 26-OH acceptor 9 into which a benzylated beta-glucose moiety was introduced by a S(N)2-type imidate coupling. After cleavage of the silyl ether, the 3beta-O-glucose and the 4-O-linked rhamnose of the chacotriose unit were introduced by a NIS/AgOTf-promoted one-pot coupling sequence utilising thioglycoside donors and their different reactivity in different solvents. After removal of a benzoyl group, the same coupling conditions were also used for the coupling of the second 2-O-linked rhamnose unit. The target substance was obtained after cleavage of the protecting benzyl ethers under Birch-type conditions, which did not affect the double bond in the steroid skeleton.

Transglucosidation of methyl and ethyl D-glucopyranosides by alcoholysis.

The transglucosidations of methyl 4-O-methyl-alpha- and -beta-D-glucopyranoside in ethanolic camphor-10-sulfonic acid, and of ethyl 4-O-methyl-alpha- and -beta-D-glucopyranoside in methanolic camphor-10-sulfonic acid, have been studied. Samples were removed at intervals and the proportions of the glucosides determined by GC of their acetates. The results show that the anomer with the inverted configuration predominates in the initially formed product (approximately 59-70%). This indicates that all the studied reactions proceed via the same mechanism, involving exocyclic C-O cleavage and formation of a glucopyranosylium ion, but that the eliminated alcohol exerts some steric hindrance, which favors the approach of the other alcohol from the opposite side.

Total Synthesis of Sialylgalactosylgloboside: Stage-Specific Embryonic Antigen 4.

A versatile total synthesis of sialylgalactosylgloboside (SGG, 1), carrying the stage-specific embryonic antigen 4 (SSEA-4) is reported, illustrating a more general strategy for the synthesis of complex globo-series glycosphingolipids. Starting from readily available building blocks 7, 8, and 10, two different approaches to the synthesis of the key tetrasaccharide 6 have been developed in a highly convergent manner. Further glycosylations with galactosyl trichloroacetimidate (5) and sialyl phosphite (2) donors successively afforded the penta- and hexasaccharides 3 and 11. The latter was finally converted into the target molecule (SGG, 1) with the help of a azidosphingosine glycosylation procedure, favored in this case by the stereocontrolling properties of the 2a-O-pivaloyl protecting group. Valuable intermediates 6 and 3, having the oligosaccharidic skeletons of Gb(4) and Gb(5) (SSEA-3), respectively, were obtained in the course of the synthesis.