Renewed synthetic approach to gangliosides exploiting versatile and powerful synthetic units

It is well known that gangliosides, sialic acid-containing glycosphingolipids, play important roles in diverse biological processes associated with cell development, immune response, cancer metastasis, infection, and signal transduction. Synthetic chemistry of ganglioside has been promoting the elucidation of the ganglioside functions at the molecular level by the supply of homogenous gangliosides and their functional probes. For advancing further glycobiology, synthetic chemistry of ganglioside must be elaborated to be capable of producing a large supply of gangliosides. Recent innovation of sialic acid chemistry allowed to access to sialic acid-containing oligosaccharides. This chapter will focus on new approaches toward the efficient total synthesis of gangliosides.