Conformation of nucleoside antibiotics

Abstract

AbstractMinor modifications or substitutions in the sugar or in the base part of pyrimidine and purine nucleosides have a profound effect on their biological activity. These modified nucleosides usually become antiviral, antibacterial, or cancerostatic agents and they are collectively called nucleoside antibiotics. The conformational properties of some of these nucleoside antibiotics have been studied by the PCILO method. The results obtained from such study indicate that the conformational preferences of these nucleoside antibiotics are very similar to those of their parent nucleosides and especially so in the situations that occur in aqueous solutions. The important biological significance of these results is that these nucleoside antibiotics can easily get incorporated into growing chains of DNA and RNA by mimicking their parent nucleosides and can interfere with the protein synthesis of RNA or DNA synthesis.