Convenient intermediates for mono-and di-amino sugars related to antibiotics can be prepared in a stereocontrolled fashion by the rearrangement of 3,4-disubstituted azetidin-2-ones which in turn can be synthesized by stereoselective annelation of certain imino compounds by substituted acetic acid derivatives.In the course of our studies on p-lactams we have conducted stereocontrolled syntheses of various disubstituted azetidin-2ones (1). We have noted previously the potential usefulness of plactams as synthons for diverse types of heterocycles.2 We describe here the use of suitably substituted p-lactams as intermediates for various members of a large and valuable family of compounds: the amino sugars. These are important ingredients of three broad classes of biologically active antibiotics, namely, amino glycosides, macrolides, and anthracyclins, besides some miscellaneous antibiotics.Many amino glycosides, such as streptomycin, gentamycin, kanamycin, neomycin, sisomycin, etc., are in use as antibacterial drugs. Macrolides constitute a large class of active antibiotics; e.g., erythromycin, oleandomycin, spiramycin, etc., are in clinical use. Anthracyclins, e.g. daunomycin, adriamycin, and carminomycin, are highly effective against a wide variety of tumours.Structural modification of these antibiotics has often involved the synthesis of various amino sugars. Several review^^-^ deal with naturally occurring amino sugars and their parent antibiotics. Our goal is to devise stereocontrolled and, preferably, enantioselective synthesis of naturally occurring amino sugars as well as their unusual analogues.General Strategy.-3,4-Disubstituted azetidin-Zones (1) can be cleaved to provide j3-amino acid derivatives (2) which can in turn be modified to correspond to the structural features of various amino sugars (Scheme 1). Conversion of the carboxy group into an aldehyde would produce aldoses (3) while ketoses (5) would be derived from a ketone prepared from the carboxy group. The relative configuration of sugar carbons carrying the Z and NH, groups would depend on the cis or trans configuration of the starting p-lactam. Useful Z groups would be OMe, N3, and SR; the last two would lead to a diamino sugar and a deoxy sugar (after desulphurization), respectively. The size of the Y group would determine the number of carbons in the sugar backbone.Reduction of the carboxy group in (2) to a primary alcohol and modification of Y would provide a sugar of type ( 4 ) -a monoamino or diamino aldose. Yet other structural variations could be realized by starting with appropriate 3,3-disubstituted and/or 4,4-disubstituted azetidin-2-ones. The use of optically active p-lactams as starting material would, of course, lead to optically active amino sugars.Starting Materials.-Previous work in our laboratory and elsewhere has shown that Schiffs bases (6) are easily obtained in good yield from %gunsaturated aldehydes and arylamines and that annelation of such imino compounds provides stereospecific access to racemic P-lactams (7a) (see Scheme ...