Automated synthesis of sialylated oligosaccharides

Sialic acid-containing glycans play a major role in cell-surface interactions with external partners such as cells and viruses. Straightforward access to sialosides is required in order to study their biological functions on a molecular level. Here, automated oligosaccharide synthesis was used to facilitate the preparation of this class of biomolecules. Our strategy relies on novel sialyl alpha-(2 -> 3) and alpha-(2 -> 6) galactosyl imidates, which, used in combination with the automated platform, provided rapid access to a small library of conjugation-ready sialosides of biological relevance.