Protecting group chemistry is of vital importance in synthetic
chemistry to ensure that reactions occur where and when you want
during a synthesis. The more functionality a target molecules
has, the more protecting groups are needed. The more protecting
groups used, the more selective the conditions for removing them
need to be to remove only the protecting groups you want
removed. The need and importance for different protecting groups
is perhaps best illustrated by the standard reference in the
field, Green’s Protective Groups in Organic Groups, the fourth
edition of which is now over 1100 pages. Researchers at Leiden
University have now introduced a new fluorous protecting group
for carbohydrate chemistry based on some earlier work they had
conducted for peptide chemistry. Back in 2003 they introduced
the FMsc tag as a base labile N-terminal fluorous tag for solid
supported peptide synthesis. The FMsc tag was designed to be
analogous to FMoc in its reactivity, while providing the benefit
of being fluorous