Photolabile Protecting Groups in Oligosaccharide Synthesis: Attractive Alternative to the Traditional Protecting Groups

Permanent protecting groups are essential for oligosaccharide synthesis. However, the removal of the traditionally used protecting groups is not trivial, demands considerable expertise and exploits hazardous and toxic reagents. Photolabile protecting groups (PPGs) are attractive alternative to the limited set of permanent protecting groups. It is demonstrated that multiple PPGs can be inserted on a single glycan and that the global deprotection of all the PPGs can be readily performed to provide unprotected glycans using a simple benchtop LED setup. Furthermore, the PPGs are proved suitable for the standard glycosylation conditions and the approach was demonstrated on many glycans and glycan related molecules. The LED set up used in this study is very easy to operate and is affordable for any standard synthetic laboratory. We believe that further refinement of the strategy will be very valuable addition tooligosaccharide synthesis and related fields.