This paper presents our recent results concerning the use of carbohydrates as cheap, chiral, and enantiopure starting materials in the construction of a variety of densely functionalized molecules. The compatibility of ring-closing metathesis with standard carbohydrate chemistry is demonstrated in the synthesis of new stereoisomers of deoxystreptamine and neamine–important building blocks for the generation of synthetic aminoglycosides with potential antibacterial activity. Ring-closing metathesis is also a key step in the rapid synthesis of new indolizidines and quinolizidines, and in a new solid-phase assisted carbohydrate-based combinatorial scaffold strategy. Further, some of our latest results in the conformational analysis of sugar amino acid-based peptide mimetics and in the development of a novel Ugi-type three-component reaction of sugar-derived azido-aldehydes are discussed.
