“…Interestingly, increase in reaction time to 24 h resulted in complete hydrolysis of the isopropylidenes. As 1a reportedly undergoes hydrolysis to form an inseparable mixture 25 of 2,3-O-isopropylidene-D-mannofuranose and 2,3-O-isopropylidene-D-mannopyranose, we carried out deisopropylidenation of 1-O-benzyl derivative of 2,3:5,6-di-O-isopropylidene-D-mannofuranose (entry 11, Table 3) in our reaction condition, 26 to find that the terminal 5,6-O-isopropylidene ring cleaves in preference to the 2,3-O-isopropylidene moiety in excellent yields (94%) within 2 h. On the other hand, the 1,2:3,4-di-Oisopropylidene-a-D-galactopyranose (3a) undergoes complete hydrolysis under the reaction conditions and gave the starting Dgalactose quantitatively. Interestingly, for Shi's ketone (entry 13, Table 3), upon hydrolysis in our reaction conditions generated the 4,5-deprotected mono-O-isopropylidene derivative, 13b 27 suggesting that spiro-fused isopropylidene moiety is more stable than the internal isopropylidene acetal ring.…”