Multi-gram scale synthesis of a bleomycin (BLM) carbohydrate moiety: exploring the antitumor beneficial effect of BLM disaccharide attached to 10-hydroxycamptothecine (10-HCPT)Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c8nj06191b

The "tumor-seeking" role of bleomycin (BLM) disaccharide has been demonstrated to serve as a promising tool for cancer diagnosis and a potential ligand for targeted therapy. However, these practical applications are often hampered by the lack of BLM disaccharide. Herein, an efficient multi-gram synthesis of peracetylated BLM disaccharide 20 is achieved by a TMSOTF-mediated glycosidation coupling manner in 43.6% overall yield in terms of benzyl galactoside. The critical innovation of the synthetic strategy is that inexpensive benzyl galactoside was first adopted to prepare an l -gulose subunit 3 as a glycosyl acceptor, with a much shorter route in 73.0% yield, and a 3- O -carbamoyl-mannose donor 4 was achieved in 47.2% yield by lowering the amount of dibutyltin oxide, and merging aminolysis and selective deacetylation into a one-pot reaction. Next, the incorporation of BLM disaccharide into 10-hydroxycamptothecin (10-HCPT), a non-specific model compound, to form conjugate 1 could significantly improve the antitumor activity and display obvious selectivity toward cancerous and normal cells in comparison with 10-HCPT. Moreover, BLM disaccharide itself was non-cytotoxic, clearly indicating the importance and potential of BLM disaccharide in solving the targeted antitumor therapy of cytotoxic drugs. An efficient multi-gram synthesis of bleomycin disaccharide has been developed, and its conjugate with 10-HCPT displayed obvious selectivity, clearly indicating the potential of bleomycin disaccharide in solving the targeted therapy of cytotoxic drugs.