As part of an ongoing project aimed at developing vaccine candidates against Cryptococcus neoformans the preparation of tri- and tetrasaccharide thioglycoside building blocks, to be used in construction of structurally defined part structures of C. neoformans GXM capsular polysaccharide, was investigated. Using a naphthalenylmethyl (NAP) ether as a temporary protecting group and trichloroacetimidate donors in optimized glycosylations the target building blocks, ethyl 6-O-acetyl-2,4-di-O-benzyl-3-O-(2-naphthalenylmethyl)-α-D-mannopyranosyl-(1→3)-[2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-β-D-xylopyranosyl-(1→2)]-4,6-di-O-benzyl-1-thio-α-D-mannopyranoside (16) and ethyl 2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-β-D-xylopyranosyl-(1→2)-4,6-di-O-benzyl-3-O-(2-naphthalenylmethyl)-α-D-mannopyranosyl-(1→3)-[2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-β-D-xylopyra-nosyl-(1→2)]-6-O-acetyl-4-O-benzyl-1-thio-α-D-mannopyranoside (21), were efficiently prepared. These synthesized thiosaccharide building blocks were then used as donors in high-yielding (~90%) DMTST promoted glycosylations to a spacer-containing acceptor to, after deprotection, afford GXM polysaccharide part structures ready for protein conjugation to give vaccine candidates. Also, the NAP groups in the building blocks were removed to obtain tri- and tetrasaccharide acceptors suitable for further elongation towards larger thiosaccharide building blocks.

A convergent synthetic strategy to Cryptococcus neoformans glucuronoxylomannan (GXM) capsular polysaccharide part structures was developed based on di-, tri-, tetra-, penta- and hexasaccharide thioglycoside building blocks. The approach permitted the...

The establishment Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) as a new class of green solvents was essentially grounded on naïve comparisons with Ionic Liquids (ILs). The easiness of DESs preparation afforded the...

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Dicationic ionic liquids (DILs), a subset of the ionic liquid (IL) family, have attracted growing interest in recent years, and the range of applications within which they are investigated is constantly expanding. However, data which allows structure to property correlation of a DIL is still limited, and thus selecting an appropriate salt to address a specific challenge can be problematic. In comparison to traditional ILs, DILs physico-chemical properties can be tuned by changing the length and type of spacer which connects the cationic heads as well as the type of cation. This in turn could give rise to symmetrical or asymmetrical DILs. In this work, a systematic study of a homogeneous class of 12 dibromide DILs and 12 di-carboxylate salts has been performed. The latter class of DILs were also compared to mono cation derivatives. The different traditional exchange methods to prepare carboxylate DILs have been evaluated and an insight into the drawbacks encountered is also presented. Prepared DILs were characterized (NMR, TGA, DSC) allowing the influence of the structure on their thermal stability to be understood. Most DILs were obtained as solid salts after careful drying. For some of these compounds, a new possible application was studied, namely their use as hydrogen bond acceptors (HBA) of deep eutectic mixtures, showing again some significant structural related effects.

The development of bio-based ionic liquids (ILs) has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. The so called long chain fatty acid ionic liquids (LCFA-ILs) represent a bio-based subfamily of hydrophobic ionic liquids. Here, a new preparation of the three major classes of LCFA-ILs (phosphonium, ammonium, imidazolium) is presented with the aim to overcome previous environmental synthetic issues. The undeniable interesting properties and potential applications of the LCFA-ILs often led to the underestimation of the drawbacks related to their synthetic pathways. Pure LCFA-ILs as well as cheaper mixture of LCFA-ILs have been obtained in a single step, in almost quantitative yields, and without production of waste water. The rheological and thermal stability properties of the prepared ILs have been analyzed

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New levulinate ionic liquids (ILs) were able to dissolve cellulose in high amounts. The ecotoxicity profiles of these new ILs were also assessed.