4-Deoxy-alpha-GalCer analogues are considered weaker agonists than KRN7000 for the stimulation of human iNKT cells, but this remains strongly debated. In this work, we described a strategy toward 4-deoxy-alpha-GalCers with, as a key step, a metathesis reaction allowing sphingosine modifications from a single ethylenic alpha-galactoside precursor. The 4-deoxy-KRN7000 derivative 2, described here, induced potent cytokinic responses, comparable to those of KRN7000, both from human iNKT cells in vitro and from their murine counterpart in vivo.

A mild and general procedure for the synthesis of α-thioglycosides from glycopyranoses is described. The method involves the treatment of pyranose reductive sugar with sodium hydride, carbon disulfide, and p-nitrobenzoyl chloride, as a key step, to yield p-nitrobenzoyl-α-d-thioglycopyranose intermediates with high stereoselectivity, in a one-pot-two-step process. The interest of the strategy highlights a direct stereoselective access to ether-protected 1-thiol-α-d-glycopyranose derivatives (Gal, Glc, and Man) from pyranoses in the absence of anomeric ‘Lewis acid’ promoters.