Effect of remote picolinyl and picoloyl substituents on the stereoselectivity of chemical glycosylation.

O-picolinyl and O-picoloyl groups at remote positions (C-3, C-4, and C-6) can mediate glycosylation reactions by providing high or even complete facial selectivity for the attack of the glycosyl acceptor. The set of data presented herein offers a strong evidence of the intermolecular H-bond tethering between the glycosyl donor and glycosyl acceptor counterparts while providing a practical new methodology for the synthesis of either 1,2-cis or 1,2-trans linkages. Challenging glycosidic linkages including α-gluco, β-manno, and β-rhamno have seen obtained with high or complete stereocontrol.