Automatic generation of synthetic routes from monosaccharides

Carbohydrates (monosaccharides) are key compounds for downstream chemical processing from biomass resources, but their reaction mechanisms in water are very complicated. A computer programme has been developed to generate and explore synthetic routes to a target compound from the monosaccharides. This article describes the methodology of the automatic generation of synthetic routes. A monosaccaride is converted into various compounds by dehydration, hydration, oxidation, reduction and intramolecular reactions. Each compound is also converted into tautomers by tautomerisations The above-mentioned operation is repeated until the molecular formula of a compound set is in agreement with that of the target. Many synthetic routes to the target from monosaccarides are detected by exploration and matching operations using a Linux personal computer.