Transforming Carbohydrates Through Multicomponent Reactions: Advances and Applications

Abstract This review highlights multicomponent reactions (MCRs) and their utilization in carbohydrate chemistry, where the anomeric center remains a concerning point and maintaining selectivity is a major challenge. Successful examples included in the review involve the synthesis of multifunctional carbohydrates with enhanced inherent physicochemical and biological properties. This review compiles and presents the importance of MCR with examples in which the parent structure of the modified carbohydrate remains intact. This review explores the various types of MCRs applied to carbohydrates, highlighting their importance in the synthesis, derivatization, and functionalization of carbohydrate molecules. The mechanistic aspects of these reactions highlight how the unique structural features of carbohydrates influence reaction pathways and outcomes. The applications of MCRs in the fields of glycomics and glycoproteomics are shown, and their extension probability is also discussed here. Through this comprehensive review, we provide insights into the current state of the art in carbohydrate MCRs and identify promising future research directions that could further enhance their utility and impact in the chemical and biological sciences. The reader of the review will be inspired to perform MCR for complex carbohydrate molecule synthesis and will expand the use of MCR in materials science.