Preparation of 2-Ketoses

In cases where a 2-C-(hydroxymethyl)aldose is easily available via base-catalyzed aldolization of a 2,3-0-alkylidene-aldofuranose with formaldehyde, the carbon-skeleton rearrangement operating in the Bilik reaction can also be conveniently exploited for preparation of 2-ketoses. The method is especially advantageous for synthesis of heptuloses and octuloses as (1) in special cases the 2-C-hydroxymethyl side chain construction is simpler than the classical aldose chain elongations, and (2) the equilibrium of a 2-C-(hydroxymethyl)aldose and its corresponding 2-ketose in the Bilik interconversion is much more favorably shifted to the side of the latter sugar (always 85%) than the LdB-AvE transformation of the pertinent unbranched aldose. 

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Oxidation of Isopropylidene Derivatives of Ketose Sugars. Whenever isopropylidene derivatives can be obtained in which all groups except the primary alcoholic grouping at Cl are blocked this method is undoubtedly the best. It may be illustrated by reference to the preparation of 2-keto-D-gluconic acid from D-fructose.14... 

In this section, a highly efficient synthetic system for the preparation of 2-C-hydroxymethylaldopentoses is discussed. The reactions of four different keto-hexoses (o-psicose, D-fructose, L-sorbose and D-tagatose) were studied imder various conditions in order to elucidate the relationship between the two key processes, the coordination of the sugar to the nickel complex, and the rearrangement of the carbon skeleton of the substrate ketose. The system was then compared with that of the epimerization of the aldose/nickel(II)/ethylenediamine complex. 

The initiating reaction between aldoses and amines, or amino acids, appears to involve a reversible formation of an N-substituted aldosyl-amine (75) see Scheme 14. Without an acidic catalyst, hexoses form the aldosylamine condensation-product in 80-90% yield. An acidic catalyst raises the reaction rate and yet, too much acid rapidly promotes the formation of 1-amino-l-deoxy-2-ketoses. Amino acids act in an autocat-alytic manner, and the condensation proceeds even in the absence of additional acid. A considerable number of glycosylamines have been prepared by heating the saccharides and an amine in anhydrous ethanol in the presence of an acidic catalyst. N.m.r. spectroscopy has been used to show that primary amines condense with D-ribose to give D-ribopyrano-sylamines. ... 

Mostly the baker s yeast transketolase has been used so far to prepare several valuable ketose sugars and derivatives 141 (cf. Sect. 7). Recently, the transketolase was utilized in the key stereogenic transformation of racemic 2-hydroxybutyraldehyde 142 into the homochiral synthon 5,6-dideoxy-D-t/ireo-hexulose 110 for the chemoenzymatic synthesis of (+ )-exo-brevicomin 107 [314], Transketolase has also been applied for the in-situ generation of Ery4P (35) from Fru6P (38) in a multi-enzymatic synthesis of 34 (Scheme 5). 

The preparation of crystalline methyl ethers of iV-phenyl- or Af-p-tolyl-aldosylamine by condensation of aniline or p-toluidine with aldose methyl ethers proceeds, in many cases, readily and quantitatively in methanolic or ethanolic solution, either at room or reflux temperature. For this reason, such derivatives are frequently used to characterize aldose methyl ethers isolated during constitutional studies on polysaccharides. For D-glucose, for example, crystalline 2-0-methyl-, 6-0-methyl-,3,4-di-O-methyl-, 2,3,4-tri-O-methyl-, 2,4,6-tri-O-methyl-, " and 2,3,4,6-tetra-O-methyl-A-phenyl-n-glucosylamine have been prepared in this way. Although anomeric forms of A -arylaldosylamine methyl ethers are possible, such anomeric pairs have not been isolated. No similar derivatives have been obtained from ketose methyl ethers. 

The transketolase (TK EC 2.2.1.1) catalyzes the reversible transfer of a hydroxy-acetyl fragment from a ketose to an aldehyde [42]. A notable feature for applications in asymmetric synthesis is that it only accepts the o-enantiomer of 2-hydroxyaldehydes with effective kinetic resolution [117, 118] and adds the nucleophile stereospecifically to the re-face of the acceptor. In effect, this allows to control the stereochemistry of two adjacent stereogenic centers in the generation of (3S,4R)-configurated ketoses by starting from racemic aldehydes thus this provides products stereochemically equivalent to those obtained by FruA catalysis. The natural donor component can be replaced by hydroxy-pyruvate from which the reactive intermediate is formed by a spontaneous decarboxylation, which for preparative purposes renders the overall addition to aldehydic substrates essentially irreversible [42]. 

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