Glycals in enantiospecific synthesis

The reactions of 1,2-unsaturated sugars (glycals) are considered in this review in relation to problems of the enantiospecific synthesis of natural products, their fragments, and their analogues. The reactions occurring both with retention of the heterocycle and those carried out with the aim of obtaining open chain chiral units are discussed. It is shown that the use of glycals as a stock of chiral substances which determine the configuration of the asymmetric centres in the target products of multistage synthesis is promising. Schemes for the synthesis of natural products of different types are considered: O- and C-glycosides, nucleosides, oligosaccharides, pheromones, antibiotics, toxins, glycosphingolipids, etc. The bibliography includes 161 references.