Galactals and 2-azido-2-deoxy-galactopyranosides equipped with a set of selectively removable hydroxy protecting groups are synthesized on the basis of lipase-catalyzed regioselective deacylation and acylation reactions.Selective deprotection of one out of a number of hydroxy groups is a prerequisite of carbohydrate chemistry. 1 This holds true, in particular, for the synthesis of complex oligosaccharides 2 and for the application of carbohydrate scaffolds in combinatorial syntheses. 3 Enzyme-catalyzed reactions have the general advantage of mild reaction conditions and high efficiency while their application is limited by substrate specificity. Ester hydrolysis catalyzed by lipases, esterases and proteases received increasing interest in protecting group chemistry during the past decade. 4 It was shown for the synthesis of glycosyl amino acids and glycopeptides that alternative selective deprotection either of the peptide carboxylic function or the carbohydrate hydroxy groups can be accomplished using lipases of different origin. 5 However, a sufficiently regioselective differentiation of the O-acetylated carbohydrate functionalities has not been achieved. 5,6 A few exceptions concern the selective hydrolysis at the primary 6-position of octanoyl-and pentanoyl glucopyranosides, 7 at the allylic 3-position of O-acetylated glycals, 8 and deacetylations of nucleotides. 9Aiming at a reliably regioselective deprotection of O-acylated hydroxy groups, we subjected galactals 1 carrying various acyl protecting groups to enzymatic hydrolysis using 25 lipases, 5 proteases and one esterase. The reactions (Scheme 1) were carried out in aq. 0.2 M phosphate buffer of pH 7 at various temperatures.The best results of regioselective enzymatic hydrolysis of esters 1 obtained in this systematic investigation are quoted in Table 1. Treatment of tri-O-acetyl-galactal with lipase A6 (Aspergillus niger) 10a produced a mixture of the 6-O-(2a) and 3-O-deblocked (3a) diacetyl-galactals in a ratio of 3:2. Hydrolysis of 1a catalyzed either by lipase WG (wheat germ) 10b or pig liver esterase (PLE-A) 10a for 2 h gave mixtures of the 6-O-(2a) and 3,6-O-deacylated (4a) compounds which could be separated (Table 1). Application of PLE-A for only 30 min resulted in a sufficiently selective formation of the 6-O-deblocked galactal 2a, however, with incomplete conversion of 1a. Methoxyacetylated galactal 1b showed a similar behaviour. Acceptable results in regioselective removal of the 2-methoxyethoxyacetyl group, 11 resembling the 2-methoxyethoxyethyl (MEE) esters, 12 were obtained by reacting 1c with protease P (Aspergillus melleus). 10a A mixture of the 6-O-(2c) and prevailing (1:3) 3-O-deprotected product 3c was isolated.Optimal regioselective deprotections were achieved with O-isobutyryl ( i But) protected galactal 1d. Hydrolysis catalyzed by lipase CCL from Candida rugosa (Sigma Type Enzyme-catalyzed regioselective hydrolysis of galactals bearing different acyl protecting groups
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