Automated oligosaccharide synthesis: Techniques and applications

This chapter focuses on recent developments in the automated solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides and emphasizes the recent advances of novel microreactor techniques for carbohydrate synthesis. Solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis is an appealing alternative to solution-phase strategies that dramatically reduce the purification process. The nature of the solid support and the linker are crucial factors that significantly influence the oligosaccharide assembly. Advances in solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis led to the development of an automated platform. Automated washing, deprotection, and glycosylation steps dramatically reduced the time and labor usually attributed to solution and solid phase synthesis of oligosaccharides. The automated solid-phase synthesis of oligopeptides and oligonucleotides had an immense impact on biochemical research and has fulfilled the growing demand of the scientific community to study these biopolymers and their biological, biophysical, and mechanical characteristics. The fully automated and computer-controlled systems that were developed in recent years offer attractive platforms for oligosaccharide synthesis.