Handbook of Methyl beta-D-Galactopyranosides:

Carbohydrates play an essential role in our daily life. The study of carbohydrates is one of the most exciting fields in organic chemistry. Even carbohydrates are key molecules in nature with multiple roles in biological processes. For a long time, carbohydrates have been very attractive field for scientists due to their immense importance in biological systems. They are the source of the metabolic energy supply, but also for the fine-tuning of cell-cell interactions and other crucial processes. As a consequence, the chemistry and biochemistry of carbohydrate derivatives is an essential part of biochemical and medicinal research. Owing to the many functional groups and the configurationally variety, the number of possible carbohydrate derivatives is huge. Therefore, the synthesis of carbohydrate derivatives is complicated, generally requiring many steps, and a range of selectivity problems has to be solved. Newly synthesized derivatives of galactopyranoside were screened for biological studies i.e., in vitro antibacterial and antifungal activities against several human and phytopathogenic microorganisms. Anticancer activities were also evaluated for pharmaceutical purposes.