Programmable Synthesis of 2-Deoxyglycosides

Control of glycoside bond stereochemistry is the central challenge in the synthesis of oligosaccharides. 2-Deoxyglycosides, which lack a C2 substituent to guide stereoselectivity, are among the most difficult classes of glycoside bond constructions. Here we present a method to synthesize 2-deoxysaccharides with specified glycoside bond stereochemistry using a nucleophilic carbohydrate residue and the synthetic equivalent of an alcohol electrophile. Because the configuration of the nucleophile can be precisely controlled, both α- and β-glycosides can be synthesized from the same starting material in nearly all cases examined. Stereoselectivities in these reactions are often greater than 50:1 and yields typically exceed 70%. This strategy is amenable to the stereocontrolled syntheses of trisaccharide diastereomers, and a tetrasaccharide. Our method offers a fundamentally new approach to O-glycoside synthesis to enable downstream biochemical and natural product applications.