MPTGs: Thioglycoside Donors for Acid-Catalyzed O-Glycosylation and Latent-Active Synthetic Strategies.

4-( p-Methoxyphenyl)-4-pentenylthioglycosides (MPTGs) undergo acid-catalyzed O-glycosylation with a range of alcohol acceptors in the presence of 10 mol % of triflic acid at room temperature. Particularly encouraging is the reactivity of MPTGs toward unreactive acceptors. MPTGs can be synthesized from the requisite vinyl bromides using the Suzuki reaction, and this chemistry can be leveraged toward a "latent-active" strategy for oligosaccharide synthesis.