Synthesis of l-3-epi-isofagomine, its homo-, n-butyl and bicyclic analogues from d-glucose as glycosidase inhibitors

Synthesis of l-3-epi-isofagomine, its homo-, n-butyl derivatives and its bicyclic analogue as potent glycosidase inhibitor has been achieved from readily available d-glucose. Inhibition of some commercially available glycosidases was also carried out with the newly synthesized inhibitors which showed reasonably good inhibitions (9.4–198.2 μM). One of them (compound 11) showed selective inhibition of β-galactosidase.