There are many b-D-glucopyranosides possessing a primary alcohol moiety as an aglycone part in nature. The development of stereoselective methods for the synthesis of glycosidic linkages presents a considerable challenge to synthetic chemists.1,2) Although well-developed chemical synthesis of the glycosidic structure is increasingly being established, several steps of selective protection, activation and coupling using a metal catalyst are necessary in their process. This problem in chemical synthesis has promoted the development of enzymatic approaches. Lipase-catalyzed synthesis of acyl sugar has been reported, 3) whereas much less is known about glycosidase-catalyzed synthesis of alkyl glycosides.4) Glycosidases are responsible for the catalytic hydrolysis of the glycosidic linkage and are increasingly being used in carbohydrate synthesis. For example, b-glucosidase catalyzes the stereospecific hydrolytic cleavage of the b-glucosidic bond in substrate (1) to give glucose (2) (Chart 1, path a). Meanwhile, the reaction of b-D-glucopyranoside (1) and a nucleophile such as an alcohol is reported to afford a new glucopyranoside (3) exclusively with the b-configuration (Chart 1, path b).
5)In the latter case, serine congeners were used as an acceptor alcohol. The success of the glycosidic bond formation requires the reactive intermediate (enzyme bound glycosyl cation) to be trapped faster by the glycosyl acceptor than by water. We are interested in this transglycosylation reaction, since alcohols as the glucosyl acceptor are better bound at the active site than water. There are two approaches to optimizing the product yield from a given glycosidase in enzymatic glycoside synthesis, i.e., the use of either a high donor or high acceptor concentration.6) High concentrations of both are usually impractical due to solubility limitation. High donor concentrations are only practical if the donor is cheap, such as glucose. High acceptor concentrations are practical if the acceptor is cheap or can be recovered from the reaction mixture. For the purpose of the synthesis of naturally occurring b-D-glucopyranosides, it is desirable to use an equal portion of both the glycosyl donor and the acceptor alcohol from a synthetic point of view. We reported that screening experiments in respect of the enzymes, glycosyl donors in phosphate buffer solution in order to find the best reaction conditions of b-glucosidation of primary alcohols were carried out.
7)The effective enzyme and glycosyl donor, respectively, for the synthesis of benzyl b-D-glucopyranoside (4) as a model transglycosylation appeared to be b-glucosidase (EC 3.2.1.21) from almonds and 4-nitrophenyl b-D-glucopyranoside (5). a Enzymes and Pharmaceuticals Research Laboratory, Godo Shusei Co., Ltd.; 250 Nakahara, Kamihongo, Matsudo, Chiba 271-0064, Japan: b School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Showa University; 1-5-8 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 142-8555, Japan: and c School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University; 2-2-1 Miyama, Funabashi, Chiba 274-8510, Japan. R...