Synthesis of fluorinated thiodigalactoside analogues

In this work, we report the first synthesis of fluorinated thiodigalactoside analogues. We used tri-isopropylsilyl thioglycosides as masked glycosyl thiol nucleophiles for the elaboration of two monofluorinated heterodimers, one difluorinated homodimer, and one difluorinated heterodimer. Moreover, we also present an alternative synthesis of 3-deoxy-3-fluorogalactose and 4-deoxy-4-fluorogalactose from a common precursor. Finally, this small set of more stable thiodigalactoside analogues could be interesting inhibitors of galactose-specific lectins.