Synthesis of Iminosugars from Tetroses

Iminosugars continue receiving a great deal of attention from chemists and biochemists for their potential as pharmaceutics. This is a comprehensive review of the methods found in the literature for the synthesis of piperidine, pyrrolidine, indolizidine, and pirrolizidine iminosugars, starting from D/L-erythrose and D/L-threose carbon chains (tetroses). This review shows the crescent popularity of small molecules to build up iminosugar molecules. Methodologies described herein utilize inexpensive commercial materials. The synthesis of the four tetroses is included referring old and modern methodologies.