Recent advances in the synthesis of thiosugars using glycal donors

Thiosugars are not only playing important roles in saccharide synthesis but also occur widely in pharmaceutical agents, natural products and S-glycopeptides/proteins, and possess critical biological activities. Many methods have been developed for the syntheses of thiosugars, but most of them adopted saturated-glycosyl donors to give 1-thiosugars only. With the development of olefin-chemistry and transition metal catalysis, numerous protocols of thiosugar synthesis were developed with 1,2-unsaturated-glycosyl donors (glycals) giving different stereoselectivity and regioselectivity. In this review, we have summarized the synthetic methods of thiosugars using glycal donors based on promoters/catalysts, including main-group, transition metal, rare-earth and solid-supported catalysts.