1. Biological roles of oligosaccharides: all of the theories are correct
2. For a recent overview on oligosaccharide solid-phase synthesis, see: (a) Seeberger P. H. Solid Support Oligosaccharide Synthesis and Combinatorial Carbohydrate Libraries; Wiley Interscience: Weinheim, 2001;
3. (b) Osborn, H. M. I.; Khan, T. H. Tetrahedron 1999, 55, 1807–1850.
4. See e.g. the following papers and references cited therein: (a) Liang, X.; Petersen, B. E.; Duus, J. Ø.; Bols, M. J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 1 2001, 2764–2773; (b) Chakraborty, T. K.; Jayaprakash, S.; Srinivasu, P.; Govardhana Chary, M.; Diwan, P. V.; Nagaraj, R.; Ravi Sankar, A.; Kunwar, A. C. Tetrahedron Lett. 2000 41, 8167–8171; (c) Bach, P.; Lohse, A.; Bols, M. Tetrahedron Lett. 1999 40, 367–370; (d) Szabo, L.; Smith, B. L.; McReynolds, K. D.; Parrill, A. L.; Morris, E. R.; Gervais, J. J. Org. Chem. 1998, 63, 1074–1078; (e) Long, D. D.; Smith, M. D.; Marquess, D. G.; Claridge, T. D. W.; Fleet, G. W. J. Tetrahedron Lett. 1998, 39, 9293–9296; (f) Byrgesen, E.; Nielsen, J.; Willert, M.; Bols, M. Tetrahedron Lett. 1997, 38, 5697–5700.