Mass Production of Sugar Intermediates for the Synthesis of Functional Oligosaccharides

Abstract

To elucidate the functions of oligosaccharides, the chemical syntheses of many complicated oligosaccharides have already been undertaken. However, the synthesis of oligosaccharides takes a relatively long time, because of the many processes required to prepare the glycosyl acceptors or the glycosyl donors that are used for the glycosylation reactions. Therefore, we have established a system for supplying the large quantities of monosaccharide intermediates that are used in the chemical synthesis of oligosaccharides, and we expect that this will allow accelerated elucidation of the functions of oligosaccharides in the future.