Glucosylation of the cis- and trans-isomers of 2-(4-methoxybenzyl)cyclohexan-1-ol (1a/1b, 2a/2b, 1a or 2a) was performed to prepare the corresponding alkyl β-D-glucopyranosides, mainly to get analytical data of pure enantiomers of the glucosides (3a-6b), required for subsequent investigations of related compounds with biological activity. One of the employed modifications of the Koenigs-Knorr synthesis resulted in achieving 85-95% yields of pure β-anomers 3a/3b, 4a/4b, 3a or 4a of protected intermediates, with several promoters and toluene as solvent, yielding finally the deprotected products 5a/5b, 6a/6b, 5a or 6a as pure β-anomers. To obtain enantiomerically pure β-anomers of the target structure (3a, 4a, 5a and 6a) for unambiguous structure assignment, an enzymic reduction of 2-(4-methoxybenzyl)cyclohexan-1-one by Saccharomyces cerevisiae whole cells was performed to get (1S,2S)- and (1S,2R)-enantiomers (1a and 2a) of 2-(4-methoxybenzyl)cyclohexan-1-ol. The opposite enantiomers of alkyl β-D-glucopyranosides (5b and 6b) were obtained by separation of the diastereoisomeric mixtures 5a/5b and 6a/6b by chiral HPLC. All stereoisomers of the products (3a-6b) were subjected to a detailed 1H NMR and 13C NMR analysis.
