Efficient Synthesis of Epilactose

Epilactose (4-O-beta-D-galactopyranosyl-D-mannose) is a reducing disaccharide with satisfactory prebiotic properties. A superior synthetic methods were confirmed by screening different coupled donors and acceptors which were synthesized from D-mannose and D-galactose, respectively. This route gets 50% overall yields and all the intermediates are easily to be purified, making the route suitable for large scale preparation of the target compound. All the compounds were characterized by NMR and HRMS spectra.