Synthesis and Applications of Carbohydrate-Derived Macrocyclic Compounds

Macrocyclic compounds are of growing interest because of their natural existence, their interesting biological, physicochemical properties, and potential applications in medicine. Various natural as well as non-natural macrocycles have been synthesized, and synthetic methodologies aiming to access macrocycles containing or derived from carbohydrates have blossomed over the last decades. Such macrocycles, naturally present in a number of biologically active products from plant and microorganism, have attracted great interest due to their structural complexity and the synthetic challenges associated with their total synthesis. More recently, an increasing number of studies have been devoted to the preparation of structurally simpler unnatural structures for biological, chemical, or analytical applications.