Silver-catalyzed stereoselective formation of glycosides using glycosyl ynenoates as donors.

A silver-catalyzed glycosylation reaction employing readily accessible and stable glycosyl ynenoates is developed. This reaction is mostly high yielding and exhibits varying levels of stereoinversion at the anomeric position. Compared to established and versatile Yu's gold catalysis, this chemistry features the use of substantially cheaper AgNTf2.