Enzymatic synthesis and properties of uridine-5′-O-(2-thiodiphospho)-N-acetylglucosamine

This paper describes an enzymatic approach to obtain a thio-containing UDP-GlcNAc analog. We use an assay based on capture of the carbohydrate and analysis by mass spectrometry to quantitatively characterize the activity of this unnatural sugar donor in a LgtA-mediated glycosylation reaction.