Buchwald-Hartwig-Migita cross-coupling of 1-thiosugars with 2-iodoglycals has been accomplished under mild and operationally simple reaction conditions through the use of Pd-G3 XantPhos palladacycle precatalyst. This new methodology has been successfully applied to a variety of α- or β-mono-, di-, and polythiosugar derivatives to synthesize efficiently a series of (1 → 2)-S-linked thiosaccharides and S-linked glycoconjugates, which are difficult to synthesize by classical methods.

A highly chemoselective thioglycoconjugation method of iodoaryl aminoacids, small peptides and complex unprotected polypeptides is reported.