Superarmed and superdisarmed building blocks in expeditious oligosaccharide synthesis.

: Traditional strategies for oligosaccharide synthesis often require extensive protecting and/or leaving group manipulations between each glycosylation step, thereby increasing the total number of synthetic steps while decreasing both the efficiency and yield. In contrast, expeditious strategies allow for the rapid chemical synthesis of complex carbohydrates by minimizing extraneous chemical manipulations. The armed-disarmed approach for chemoselective oligosaccharide synthesis is one such strategy that addresses these challenges. Herein, the significant improvements that have recently emerged in the area of chemoselective activation are discussed. These advancements have expanded the scope of the armed-disarmed methodology so that it can now be applied to a wider range of oligosaccharide sequences, in comparison to the original concept. Surveyed in this chapter are representative examples wherein these excellent innovations have already been applied to the synthesis of various oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates.