Monosaccharides ring formation

The methylation method has been the principal means for determining the type of ring of the monosaccharide constituents and their points of attachment to one another in the oligosaccharide molecule. The usual procedure involves (1) complete methylation of the disaccharide (2) hydrolysis of the methylated disaccharide to partially methylated monosaccharide units, and their identification by comparison of their properties with those of known methylated compounds (3) determination of the unmethylated positions in each unit, these being the positions which were available for ring formation and for linkage between units and (4) determination of the ring type (pyranose or furanose) by supplementary evidence, such as determination of the rate of hydrolysis of the partially methylated lactone (31). 

Note 1. Many of the possible conformations are not likely to contribute significantly to the chemistry of a particular monosaccharide, but must be stabilized by formation of additional rings, as in anhydrides or other derivatives. Some others may occur as transition-state intermediates. 

The compounds usually known as monosaccharide anhydrides or glycose anhydrides (earlier glycosans ), formation of which involves the anomeric hydroxy group, are named by the same procedure. In these cases the order of preference of ring size designators is pyranose > furanose > septanose. However, three- or four-membered rings should normally be cited as anhydro if there is a choice. 

The activation of an anomeric hydroxyl group from partially protected or unprotected monosaccharides can be achieved via 1,2-cyclic sulfite formation. A subsequent trans-ring opening with azide N3 affords one anomeric derivative exclusively 133... 

The enzymatic synthesis of sucrose also throws light on the formation of the furanose form of fructose in the sucrose molecule. The fact that sucrose is directly formed from D-glucose-l-phosphate and D-fructose supports Isbell and Pigman s34 and Gottschalk s85 evidence that the latter monosaccharide occurs in solution in an equilibrium mixture of furanose and pyranose forms. This makes it unnecessary to postulate a special mechanism of stabilization of a five membered (furanose) ring before the formation of compound sugars containing the D-fructose molecule.86... 

This sequence serves to exemplify the formation and aspects of reactivity of toluene-p-sulphonate esters in monosaccharide systems, and further to illustrate the selective protection afforded to hydroxyl groups by the formation of cyclic acetals by reaction with carbonyl compounds. Thus reaction of methyl a-D-glucopyranoside (26) with benzaldehyde in the presence of zinc chloride gives the 4,6-acetal (27) (Expt 5.118), wherein two fused six-membered rings of the frans-decalin type are present. As a cognate preparation the reaction of benzaldehyde with methyl a-D-galactopyranoside results in a similar conversion to a 4,6-acetal, but in this case the product is the conformationally flexible system of the cis-decalin type, the most likely conformation being that shown below. 

Monosaccharides Form Rings as a Consequence of Internal Hemiacetal or Hemiketal Formation. 

---