“…Branching of sugars can be achieved in several ways; the Kiliani reaction of ketoses with cyanide (Hotchkiss et al, 2006;Soengas et al, 2005); calcium oxide treatment of Amadori compounds (Hotchkiss et al, 2006(Hotchkiss et al, ,2007; the Aldol reaction for the introduction of hydroxymethyl branches (Ho, 1978;Koos & Mosher, 1986). Using these techniques, 2-Cmethyl arabinose derivatives have been reported (Bream et al, 2006;Punzo et al, 2005). Doubly branched sugar derivatives are rare; examples include 2,4-di-C-methyl-3,4-O-isopropylidene-L-arabinono-1,5-lactone and various protected forms of 3,5-di-C-methyl-mannono and glucono lactones (Booth et al, 2007a,b,c).…”