The invention particularly relates to 4 '-thiosugar and a preparation method thereof. The preparation method comprises the following steps: taking D-
ribose as a
raw material, firstly carrying out
methylation protection on C1-site hydroxyl, and then carrying out benzylation protection on other hydroxyl; the preparation method comprises the following steps: firstly, carrying out
hydrolysis on a glucosidic bond at a C1 site, carrying out reduction through hydroboron to obtain open-loop
ribitol (formula V), carrying out
sulfonic acid esterification and bromination substitution on hydroxyl of the
ribitol, forming a
sulfur bridge bond by taking
sodium sulfide as a nucleophilic
reagent to obtain benzyl-protected thiosugar, oxidizing a
thioether bond into
sulfoxide, rearranging to obtain acetoxy
thioether, and carrying out debenzylation reaction and hydroxybenzoylation reaction to obtain the high-purity acetoxy
thioether. According to the present invention, the multi-step intermediate reaction only needs simple purification, the key intermediate can be obtained through recrystallization, the method is simple, the yield is high, the amplification production is convenient, and the obtained 4 '-thiosugar as the basic
sugar can participate in the reaction with a variety of basic groups to form the
sulfur-containing
nucleoside so as to provide the good foundation for the subsequent
drug development or activity screening.