The lead salts of d-a-mannobeptonic acid and d-/'1-mannoheptonic acid were made and used for the separation of the corresponding free acids. The gamma lactone of d-/'1-mannoheptonic acid was prepared and reduced with sodium amalgam to give d-fl-mannoheptose which was separated in the crystalline alpha modification. This new sugar is structurally related to a-d-talose and exhibits similar properties. Its mutarotation is complex, consisting in a fast change followed or accompanied by a smaller slow change. The proportions of the constitutents involved in the rapid reaction vary with temperature so that a change in temperature results in a rapid mutarotation. The temperature coefficient for the rapid mutarotation reaction corresponds to that for the rapid mutarotation reactions of galactose, arabinose, talose, ribose, and d-/'1-glucobeptose, whereas the temperature coefficient for the slow change agrees with the temperature coefficients for the mutarotations of glucose, mannose, gulose, and other reactions which consist in the interconversion of the alpha and beta pyranoses. The parallelism between the properties of d-talose, d-a-guloheptose, and d-/'1-mannoheptose is evidence that the configurations of the five carbon atoms comprising the pyranose ring determine in large measure the composition of the equilibrium solutions of the sugar. Measurements of the rates of oxidation with bromine water show that a-d-/'1-mannoheptose and a-d-a-gulobeptose are oxidized at rates comparable to that previously found for the oxidation of a-d-talose and that the equilibrium solutions contain substantial quantities of rapidly oxidizable material.
CONTENTS