Synthesis of unnatural sugar nucleotides and their evaluation as donor substrates in glycosyltransferase-catalyzed reactions

Abstract New unnatural sugar nucleotides, UDP-Fuc and CDP-Fuc were synthesized from fucose-β-1-phosphate and nucleotide monophosphates activated as morpholidates. Furthermore, a nucleotide analogue was prepared by phosphorylation of 1-(β- D -ribofuranosyl)cyanuric acid, itself obtained as a protected derivative by condensation of the persilylated derivative of cyanuric acid with 1- O -acetyl-2,3,5-tri- O -benzoyl-β- D -ribofuranose in 74% yield. This phosphate activated according to the same procedure was condensed with fucose-β-1-phosphate, affording a new sugar nucleotide conjugate (NDP-Fuc) which was evaluated together with UDP-Fuc, CDP-Fuc and ADP-Fuc, as fucose donors in α-(1→4/3)-fucosyltransferase (FucT-III) catalyzed reaction. Fucose transfer could be observed with each of the donors and kinetic parameters were determined using a fluorescent acceptor substrate. Efficiency of the four analogues towards FucT-III was in the following order: UDP-Fuc = ADP-Fuc > NDP-Fuc > CDP-Fuc. According to the same strategy ADP-GlcNAc was prepared from AMP-morpholidate and N -acetylglucosamine-α-1-phosphate; tested as a glucosaminyl donor towards Neisseria meningitidis N -acetylglucosaminyl transferase ( LgtA ), ADP-GlcNAc was recognized with 0.1% efficiency as compared with UDP-GlcNAc, the natural donor substrate.