Synthesis of arabinoxylan fragments

The cell wall of plants can be termed the skeleton of the plant. One of the parts making up the cell wall is hemicellulose. Hemicellulose is composed of a number of saccharides where one of the most abundant are the arabinoxylan-oligosaccharides. In many instances the biosynthesis and degration of arabinoxylan oligosaccharides remain elusive. As a consequence defined arabinoxylan fragments have been chosen as synthetic targets which subsequently will be submitted to enzymatic studies. A better understanding of these processes could lead to e.g. better utilisation of the biomass for biofuel production, or production of commercial chemicals which are mainly obtained from fossil fuels today.The arbinoxylan fragments have a backbone of β-1,4-linked xylans with α-L-arabinose units attached at specific positions. The synthesis ultilises an efficient synthetic route, where all the xylan units can be derived from D-xylose through a common intermediate. The xylan units feature the same thiophenyl donor functionality to allow for successive coupling with the same optimised glycosylation protocol. Then, the arabinose units can be attached and global deprotection yields the target fragments.