Levoglucosenone: Old but New Optically Active Starting Material

Levoglucosenone [1, 6-anhydro-3, 4-dideoxy-β-D-glycero-hex-3-eno-pyrano-2-ulose, (4)] is widely known as a pyrolytic product of cellulose. It is very useful chiral source for synthesizing natural products owing to its highly functionalized structure containing essentially one chiral center. The synthesis of useful compounds starting from levoglucosenone (4) and their applications as useful chiral building blocks are reviewed in this article.