Controlled reduction of acarbose: conformational analysis of acarbose and the resulting saturated products.
Saturation of the double bond in the non-reducing terminal unit of the tetrasaccharide amylase inhibitor, acarbose (1), with Raney nickel as the catalyst and at pH 8, gave 57% of a approximately 1:1 mixture of the 5a-carba-gluco (2) and -ido (3) isomers together with cleavage products including 26% of the trisaccharide 6-deoxy-alpha-D-Glcp4N-(1----4)-alpha-D-Glcp-(1----4)-D-Glc (4). The saturated compounds were isolated and characterised using 1H- and 13C-n.m.r. spectroscopy. The preferred conformations of 1 and 2 were dependent on the state of ionisation of the bridging nitrogen atom. The inhibition by 1-4 of the hydrolysis of methyl beta-maltoside by glucoamylase has been investigated; 1 and 2 were strong inhibitors.