Synergistic catalysis: An emerging concept for selective carbohydrate synthesis

Harnessing modern catalytic concepts to address long-standing challenges in carbohydrate chemistry has garnered substantial interest from the synthetic community in recent years. In particular, the usage of multiple catalysts for sequential one-pot relay reactions has already contributed to major benefits in accessing oligosaccharides in the past two decades. In contrast, the exploitation of synergistic catalysis in the glycosciences is only in its infancy. While relay methods combine stepwise reactions into a single flask operation, they do not intrinsically alter reaction mechanisms. Conversely, synergistic catalysis involves the creation of unique mechanistic pathways by merging catalytic cycles. At the nexus of catalytic cycles, fertile opportunities arise for bond-forming strategies that are not possible within the individual catalytic manifold. The recent realization of the underexploited potential of synergistic catalysis is expected to accelerate developments within the carbohydrate chemistry field, thereby offering stereoselective entry points into glycosidic chemical space that was previously inaccessible.