Amino sugars synthesis from glycin

In an extension of the work on the synthesis of IV-substituted amino sugars by the amino nitrile method, Kuhn and coworkers13 have prepared 2-(carboxymethylamino)-2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-deoxy-2-glycino-D-glucose), as the dipolar ion LXXXII, from glycine ethyl ester plus D-arabinose. 

Over 500 different a-amino acids have now been synthesized or isolated. About 20 of them form the main components of proteins (see also Chapter 30). a-Amino acids are commerically obtained by fermentation of glucose (arg, asp, gin, glu, his, ile, lys, pro, val, thr) or glycine (ser), or enzymatic attack on aspartic acid (ala) or fumaric acid (asp), by hydrolysis, for example, of casein or sugar beet waste (arg, cys, his, hyp, leu, tyr), by transformation of ornithine (arg) or glutamic acid (gin), or, alternatively, by complete synthesis from aldehydes using the Strecker synthesis (ala, gly, leu, met, phe, thr, trp, val), from acrylonitrile (gly, lys), or from caprolactam (lys). The racemates are obtained by total synthesis, but L-amino acids are produced by all the other processes. The racemates are separated and the D-isomers produced are again racemized. 

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