A wide variety of p-tolyl thioriboside donors are examined for O-ribosylations of primary and secondary alcohols. p-Tolylsulfenyl trifluoromethanesulfonate (p-TolSOTf) is very effective in promoting O-ribosylations with p-tolyl thioriboside; all reactions are completed within 1~15 min. to provide the desired products in good yield with reliable α/β selectivity. A wide range of functional groups are tolerated under these conditions. The described O-ribosylation conditions are very useful for the generation of ribosamino-uridine library molecules in solution or on polymer-support.The 5-deoxy-5-aminoribose moiety of ribosamino-uridine antibiotics (i.e. muraymycin, liposidomycin, caprazamycin, and FR-900493) has been considered as an important functional group to exhibit excellent antibacterial activities. 1 These antibiotics are known to interfere with the enzyme involved in the committed step of peptidoglycan biosynthesis, MraY which catalyzes the transformation of UDP-N-acylmuramyl-L-alanyl-γ-D-glutamyl-mesodiaminopimelyl-D-alanyl-D-alanine (Park's nucleotide) to prenylpyrophosphoryl-Nacylmuramyl-L-Ala-γ-D-glu-meso-DAP 2 -D-Ala-D-Ala (lipid I), and are non-toxic or less toxic in vivo. Thus, MraY has been a target of interest for the discovery of novel antimycobacterial agents. 3 However, medicinal chemistry programs of these natural products with an aim to improve the efficacy including pharmacokinetics are hampered by a limited number of modification reactions which can selectively modify the desired positions of such complex molecules. 4 In addition, one of the drawbacks of performing medicinal chemistry with these complex antibiotics is the requirement for the fermentation of the natural product starting materials. 5 michio.kurosu@colostate.edu. In our ongoing effort to define the minimum structure requirement of ribosamino-uridine MraY inhibitors of natural product origin to exhibit equal biological activity, 6 we envisioned synthesizing a library of ribosamino-uridine molecules in solution or on polymer-support. 7 Because structural diversity of ribosamino-uridine antibiotics are observed not only in the lipid moiety (R group in Figure 1) but also at the 2-position of aminoribose moiety (i.e. methyl or sulfonyl group), it is desired to develop a versatile and robust ribosylation method which also amenable to glycosylations on polymer-support. 8 Although numerous examples of N-glycosylations of purine or pyrimidine bases with furanose derivatives have been reported, 9 O-ribosylation has rarely discussed in literatures. Recently, Merrer and co-workers reported O-ribosylations of primary alcohols using bromo-or fluororibosides with the established promoters such as AgOTf or SnCl 2 /AgClO 4 . 10 Reaction rates for O-ribosylations with 1-halo riboside are very slow (6~36h), and in our hands under these conditions O-ribosylations of the secondary alcohols resulted in unsatisfactory yields of 15~65%. In addition, because of the limited accessibility of 1-halo ribosides it is difficult to diversify ribosami...