Synthesis of Carba-aminosugars, and aza- and imnosugars as glycosidic inhibitors starting from readily available sugar derivatives and L-ascorbic acid

PI: Prof Y.D.Vankar

The main objective in this proposal is to develop new synthetic approaches towards some known and some unknown designed glycosidase (enzyme) inhibitors which are mostly heterocyclic, and some are carbocyclic molecules with well defined stereochemistry of various substituents. The synthetic strategies proposed take the advantage of cheaply available starting materials such as simple sugar molecules (glucose, xylose, mannitol, arabinose, ribose etc.) and also L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The newly designed molecules will be screened for enzyme inhibition after their synthesis. If anyone of these molecules shows excellent and specific inhibition of an enzyme, then we can proceed further for more elaborate studies and further applications. The work involves synthesis and enzyme inhibitions studies, facilities for which are already well established in our research laboratory at IITK.