“…However, their isolation from pectic cell wall material is exceedingly cumbersome and has rarely provided well defined products Ϫ exceptions being mg quantities of galactobiose, [13] -triose, and -tetraose. [12] Similarly, the generation of oligo-β(1Ǟ4)-galactosides by β-galactosidase-induced galactosyl transfer has, despite its simplicity, not passed the β(1Ǟ4)-galactobiose stage, [32,33] while their chemical synthesis has proven to be a particularly formidable task, since the axially disposed 4-OH of a galactosyl acceptor, necessarily carrying blocking groups at O-6 and O-3, is sterically less accessible for glycosylation than primary or equatorial OHs, aside from its being comparatively unreactive to begin with.…”