Multi-gram scale synthesis of a bleomycin (BLM) carbohydrate moiety: exploring the antitumor beneficial effect of BLM disaccharide attached to 10-hydroxycamptothecine (10-HCPT)

An efficient multi-gram synthesis of bleomycin disaccharide has been developed, and its conjugate with 10-HCPT displayed obvious selectivity, clearly indicating the potential of bleomycin disaccharide in solving the targeted therapy of cytotoxic drugs.

Analysis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry: An update for 2013-2014

This review is the eighth update of the original article published in 1999 on the application of Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI) mass spectrometry to the analysis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates and brings coverage of the literature to the end of 2014. Topics covered in the first part of the review include general aspects such as theory of the MALDI process, matrices, derivatization, MALDI imaging, fragmentation, and arrays. The second part of the review is devoted to applications to various structural types such as oligo- and poly- saccharides, glycoproteins, glycolipids, glycosides, and biopharmaceuticals. Much of this material is presented in tabular form. The third part of the review covers medical and industrial applications of the technique, studies of enzyme reactions, and applications to chemical synthesis. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Mass Spec Rev 37:353-491, 2018.

"One-Pot" Protection, Glycosylation, and Protection-Glycosylation Strategies of Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates, which are ubiquitously distributed throughout the three domains of life, play significant roles in a variety of vital biological processes. Access to unique and homogeneous carbohydrate materials is important to understand their physical properties, biological functions, and disease-related features. It is difficult to isolate carbohydrates in acceptable purity and amounts from natural sources. Therefore, complex saccharides with well-defined structures are often most conviently accessed through chemical syntheses. Two major hurdles, regioselective protection and stereoselective glycosylation, are faced by carbohydrate chemists in synthesizing these highly complicated molecules. Over the past few years, there has been a radical change in tackling these problems and speeding up the synthesis of oligosaccharides. This is largely due to the development of one-pot protection, one-pot glycosylation, and one-pot protection-glycosylation protocols and streamlined approaches to orthogonally protected building blocks, including those from rare sugars, that can be used in glycan coupling. In addition, new automated strategies for oligosaccharide syntheses have been reported not only for program-controlled assembly on solid support but also by the stepwise glycosylation in solution phase. As a result, various sugar molecules with highly complex, large structures could be successfully synthesized. To summarize these recent advances, this review describes the methodologies for one-pot protection and their one-pot glycosylation into the complex glycans and the chronological developments associated with automated syntheses of oligosaccharides.

Synthesis of the Heptasaccharide Repeating Unit of the Cell Wall O-Polysaccharide of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli O139

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) like the O139 strain are mostly responsible for traveler's diarrhea and causes diseases in pigs, cattle, and poultry. A convenient synthetic strategy was developed for the synthesis of the heptasaccharide repeating unit of the cell wall lipopolysaccharide of the E. coli O139 strain. The p-methoxybenzyl (PMB) group was used as a temporary protecting group which was removed in situ under the glycosylation conditions by changing the reaction temperature during the synthesis of the target compound. All glycosylation steps gave high yields with good stereoselectivity. A (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPO)-mediated selective oxidation of the primary hydroxyl group was carried out using a biphasic reaction condition at the late stage of the synthesis. Such synthetic oligosaccharides could later be effectively conjugated with proteins to prepare glycoconjugate derivatives as vaccine candidates.