Synthesis and biological evaluation of 6-oxa-nor-tropane glycomimetics as glycosidase inhibitors

The preparation of polyhydroxylated 6-oxa-nor-tropane glycomimetics structurally related to the glycosidase inhibitor family of the calystegines is reported. The synthetic strategy involves the furanose→piperidine rearrangement of 5-deoxy-5-ureido-l-idose precursors, followed by intramolecular glycosylation involving the primary hydroxyl group. Inversion of the configuration at C-3 in the resulting 6-oxa-(+)-calystegine B2 analogue allows accessing the elusive 3-epi-6-oxa-(+)-calystegine B2 skeleton. Acid-catalyzed opening of the nor-tropane bicycle was observed, however, which could be avoided by careful neutralization of the reaction mixture. The inhibition results suggest that (+)-calystegine B2 derivatives and the corresponding C-3 epimers can be seen as glucomimetics and galactomimetics, respectively, pointing to a 1-azasugar mode of action for this family of alkaloids.