ENZYMATIC-SYNTHESIS OF POLYOL-GLYCOSIDES AND MASKED POLYOL-GLYCOSIDES USING BETA-GLYCOSIDASE OF SULFOLOBUS-SOLFATARICUS

The use of commercially available mesophilic glycosidases in the enzymatic synthesis of glycosides of different types is a well established method suffering from some drawbacks such as a poor yield. Substrates with three or four hydroxyl groups have been subjected to enzymatic glucosylation using crude homogenate of the thermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus containing a beta-glycosidase activity able to transfer glucose, galactose and fucose from different donors. The stereochemistry of this reaction was interpreted in terms of interaction with a possible ''glucose'' active site of the enzyme. In addition masked or protected derivatives of tetritols and some simple unsaturated alcohols were glycosylated yielding glycosides in yields very competitive with those obtained using mesophilic enzymes, examples of further chemical manipulation of these compounds were reported. When using a scarce amount of acceptor, a reasonable amount of products could be obtained by adding different aliquots of donor at time intervals.