Carbohydrate homologation by the use of 2-(trimethylsilyl)thiazole. Preparative scale synthesis of rare sugars: L-gulose, L-idose, and the disaccharide subunit of bleomycin A(2)

The well established one-carbon homologation method of protected monosaccharides employing 2-(trimethylsilyl)thiazole (2-TST) as a formyl anion equivalent has been used for high yield and multigram scale synthesis of the title rare hexoses from L-xylose. Thus, L-gulose has been obtained by stereoselective anti-addition of 2-TST to aldehydo-L-xylose diacetonide followed by thiazole to formyl conversion of the resulting alcohol. The inversion of configuration at C-1 of this alcohol by an oxidation - reduction sequence prior to the aldehyde releasing from thiazole led to L-idose. The same alcohol was readily elaborated into 1,3,4,6-tetra-O-acetyl-L-gulopyranose whose highly stereoselective glycosidation coupling with 3-O-carbamoyl-2,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-α-D-mannosyl diethyl phosphate afforded the same peracetylated disaccharide subunit employed by Boger and Honda in the total synthesis of the antibiotic bleomycin A2.