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2E

21. Emilie Underlin

Technical University of Denmark
SYNTHESIS OF ARABINOXYLAN FRAGMENTS
Denmark
The cell wall of plants can be termed the skeleton of the plant. One of the parts making up the cell wall is hemicellulose. Hemicellulose is a broad defination which cover the class of compounds known as arabinoxylan-oligosaccharides. In many instances the biosynthesis and degration of arabinoxylan oligosaccharides remain elusive. As a consequence defined arabinoxylan fragments have been chosen as synthetic targets which subsequently will be submitted to enzymatic studies. A better understand-ding of these processes could lead to e.g. better utilisation of the biomass for biofuel production, or production of commercial chemicals which are mainly obtained from fossil fuels today [1]. The arbinoxylan fragments have a backbone of β-1,4-linked xylans with α-L-arabinose units attached at specific positions. So far the synthesis of these is still undergoing. The synthesis ultilise an efficient synthetic route, where all the xylan units can be derived from D-xylose through a common intermediate. The xylan units features the same thiophenyl donor functionality to allow for successive coupling employing the same optimised glycosylation protocol [2]. Following the arabinose units can be attached and global deprotection will yield the target fragments. [1] H. Scheller; P. Ulvskov; Hemicelluloses. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 2010, 61, 263-289 [2] D. Crich; F. Cai; F. Yang; A stable, commercially available sulfenyl chloride for the activation of thioglycosides in conjunction with silver trifluoromethanesulfonate. Carbohydr. Res., 2008, 343, 1858-1862.