A synthetic method for the core 4 O-glycan-linked Ser and Thr was developed. Highly stereoselective 3-O- and 6-O-glycosylation was achieved by using two distinctively protected N-trichloroacetyllactosaminyl fluorides (3 and 12). Microwave-assisted Zn reduction rapidly and efficiently converted N-trichloroacetylglucosamine (GlcNTCA) to N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc). In order to demonstrate the usefulness of the protected core 4 O-glycan a segment (Gly(34)-Gly(58)) of emmprin (extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer), a cancer metastasis-related glycoprotein, was synthesized by the solid-phase method, utilizing the pentasaccharyl Thr (2) to introduce an O-glycan in place of the native N-glycan at Asn(44). (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.