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Recently, we described synthetic sulfolipids named Sulfavants as a novel class of molecular adjuvants based on the sulfoquinovosyl-diacylglycerol skeleton. The members of this family, Sulfavant A (1), Sulfavant R (2), and Sulfavant S (3), showed important effects on triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2)-induced differentiation and maturation of human dendritic cells (hDC), through a novel cell mechanism underlying the regulation of the immune response. As these molecules are involved in biological TREM2-mediated processes crucial for cell survival, here, we report the synthesis and application of a fluorescent analogue of Sulfavant A bearing the 4,4-difluoro-1,3,5,7-tetramethyl-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene moiety (Me4-BODIPY). The fluorescent derivative, named PB-SULF A (4), preserving the biological activity of Sulfavants, opens the way to chemical biology and cell biology experiments to better understand the interactions with cellular and in vivoorgan targets and to improve our comprehension of complex molecular mechanisms underlying the not fully understood ligand-induced TREM2 activity.

Recently, we reported the promising activity of a novel class of sulfoquinovosyl-diacylglycerols named Sulfavants as molecular vaccine adjuvants. Herein, we describe a modified and improved chemical synthesis of the lead product Sulfavant A (1), with the aim to produce from milligrams to 10 g of the pure compound that is necessary for the preclinical development. Starting from the versatile synthesis based on the trichloroacetimidate methodology, up-scaled preparation of Sulfavant A (1) was achieved in 11 steps by elimination and modification of those reactions that negatively affected the overall yield by the previous procedure. The novel strategy gave 17% overall yield of the target compound 1and also paved the way for the gram-scale preparation of a wide range of other charged and neutral glycoglycerolipids.