“Heteroglycals” As New Potential Glycosidase Inhibitors. Synthetic Approaches From D-Arabinose

Abstract

Within the frame of an ongoing project on glycosidase inhibitors, we have been interested in the synthesis of “heteroglycals”, namely, glycal analogues with sulfur or nitrogen in the ring. Glycals2 are well known for their applications in sugar chemistry in particular for glycosyl transfer.3 They are also known as glycosidase inhibitors through a slow chemical reaction with the enzyme. Recently exo-glycals emerged as a new class of glycals4 which showed interesting features as glycosidase inhibitors but also as precursors of glycomimetics such as C-glycosides.5 We have undertaken investigations on related heteroglycals: such compounds are of interest because they combine a planar geometry at the anomeric center and a possible charge site - both elements known to be important to mimic the transition state of the enzymatic glycoside hydrolysis process.6