One-pot synthesis of N-acetyl- and N-glycolylneuraminic acid capped trisaccharides and evaluation of their influenza A(H1 N1) inhibition.

Human lung epithelial cells natively offer terminal N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) α(2→6)-linked to galactose (Gal) as binding sites for influenza virus hemagglutinin. N-Glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc) in place of Neu5Ac is known to affect hemagglutinin binding in other species. Not normally generated by humans, Neu5Gc may find its way to human cells from dietary sources. To compare their influence in influenza virus infection, six trisaccharides with Neu5Ac or Neu5Gc α(2→6) linked to Gal and with different reducing end sugar units were prepared using one-pot assembly and divergent transformation. The sugar assembly made use of an N-phthaloyl-protected sialyl imidate for chemoselective activation and α-stereoselective coupling with a thiogalactoside. Assessment of cytopathic effect showed that the Neu5Gc-capped trisaccharides inhibited the viral infection better than their Neu5Ac counterparts.

Reinvestigation of the C5-acetamide sialic acid donor for α-selective sialylation: practical procedure under microfluidic conditions.

Despite the previous literature describing the "low-to-modest" efficiency, the readily available C5-acetamide donor was reinvestigated for its use in α-sialylation under microfluidic conditions. The N-phenyltrifluoroacetimidate donor was efficiently mixed with an appropriate amount of TMSOTf to produce the α(2-6) and α(2-3)-sialylation products of galactose and glucosamine acceptors in excellent yields and with nearly perfect α-selectivity.