Acetals cyclic sugar, conformations

Formation of cyclic acetals by sugar hydroxyls generally retards nucleophilic displacements at the anomeric centre of the same sugar residue. In the case of 4,6-benzylidene derivatives, the mechanism of deactivation appears to be that the dipole of the C6-06 bond is constrained with its positive end directed towards the anomeric centre.In the case of the 1,2-diketals, the deactivation arises from the increased difficulty of forming half-chair or boat conformations in a six-membered ring, which is part of a traw -fused decalin structure. 

Several reviews have already been published on the subject, for example, the acetala-tion of alditols [4], of aldoses and aldosides [5,6], and of ketoses [7]. Some aspects of the stereochemistry of cyclic acetals have been discussed in a review dealing with cyclic derivatives of carbohydrates [8], also in a general article [9] and, more recently, in a chapter of a monograph devoted to the stereochemistry and the conformational analysis of sugars [10], Aspects on predicting reactions patterns of alditol-aldehyde reactions are reviewed within a general series of books on carbohydrates [11]. The formation and migration of cyclic acetals of carbohydrates have also been reviewed [12,13],... 

Cyclic acetals of ketoses are important and useful compounds. Among other applications, they can be used as intermediates in the synthesis of numerous, useful sugar derivatives and as substrates for studies of conformational principles in fused-ring, heterocyclic A personal contribution by the author. 

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