General Strategy for the Synthesis of Rare Sugars via Ru(II)-Catalyzed and Boron-Mediated Selective Epimerization of 1,2-trans-Diols to 1,2-cis-Diols

Human glycans are primarily composed of nine common sugar building blocks. On the other hand, several hundred monosaccharides have been discovered in bacteria and most of them are not readily available. The ability to access these rare sugars and the corresponding glycoconjugates can facilitate the studies of various fundamentally important biological processes in bacteria, including interactions between microbiota and the human host. Many rare sugars also exist in a variety of natural products and pharmaceutical reagents with significant biological activities. Although several methods have been developed for the synthesis of rare monosaccharides, most of them involve lengthy steps. Herein, we report an efficient and general strategy that can provide access to rare sugars from commercially available common monosaccharides via a one-step Ru(II)-catalyzed and boron-mediated selective epimerization of 1,2-trans-diols to 1,2-cis-diols. The formation of boronate esters drives the equilibrium toward 1,2-cis-diol products, which can be immediately used for further selective functionalization and glycosylation. The utility of this strategy was demonstrated by the efficient construction of glycoside skeletons in natural products or bioactive compounds.