Expedient synthesis of mucin-type oligosaccharide analogues using alkynyl glycosyl carbonate donors

Access to mucin-type O-glycans as tools to help further our understanding of the biological role of these complex molecules is of great importance. Herein we report the development of an efficient and practical synthetic strategy for the synthesis of 1-azidopropyl functionalised di- and trisaccharide mucin analogues using alkynyl glycosyl carbonate donors that can be activated using gold(I)/silver(I) salts. The reactions are high yielding and stereoselective, which allows us to streamline the overall process by telescoping several steps without the need for purification after each step.