“…Synthesis of hydroxytyrosyl acetate via benzylation of phenolic hydroxyls A two-step procedure involving the reaction of methyl orthoformate-protected hydroxytyrosol with acetyl chloride, and hydrolytic deprotection in phosphate buffer under very mild conditions (pH=7.2) to get hydroxytyrosyl acetate (87% overall yield) (Scheme 3) was also described as a successful procedure for the preparation of HT-derived esters (Gambacorta et al, 2007 In order to overcome the problems associated to the protection and deprotection steps of the phenolic hydroxyl groups, different methods for the preparation of hydroxytyrosyl esters by reaction of hydroxytyrosol with various acylating agents have been described, such as esterification with free acids (Appendino et al, 2002), transesterification with methyl or ethyl esters (Alcudia et al, 2004;Trujillo et al, 2006), acyl chlorides (Torregiani et al, 2005) and the use of enzymatic methodologies (Grasso et al, 2007;Mateos et al, 2008;Torres de Pinedo et al, 2005;Buisman, 1998).…”