Title:Bioactive Furanyl- or Thienyl-Substituted Nucleobases, Nucleosides and
Their Analogues
Volume: 23
Issue: 5
Author(s): Tomasz Ostrowski*
Affiliation:
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Noskowskiego 12/14, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
Keywords:
Nucleoside analogue, heteroaryl substituent, structure-activity relationship, antiviral activity, cytostatic activity, antimycobacterial activity, adenosine receptor antagonist.
Abstract: Five-membered heterocycles, including furan and thiophene, play a prominent role in
drug design as structural units of bioactive molecules. This review is intended to demonstrate the
importance of the furan-2-yl, furan-3-yl, thien-2-yl and thien-3-yl substituents in the medicinal
chemistry of purine and pyrimidine nucleobases, nucleosides and selected analogues. Data
presented in the article are limited to compounds containing heteroaromatic ring connected
through a bond and not fused to other systems. The impact of bioisosteric replacement of aryl
substituents with heteroaryl ones on activities was assessed by comparison of the title compounds
with their aryl counterparts. A total of 135 heteroaryl-substituted and 35 aryl-substituted derivatives
are mentioned in the text and shown in the figures. The following classes of compounds are
included in the article: (i) 5-heteroaryl-2’-deoxyuridines and related compounds; (ii) 8-heteroaryl-
2,9-disubstituted adenine derivatives; (iii) O6-(heteroarylmethyl)guanines; (iv) 6-heteroaryl
tricyclic guanine analogues; (v) 6-heteroaryl-9-benzylpurines and analogous compounds; (vi) N4-
furfurylcytosine, N6-furfuryladenine, their derivatives and analogues; (vii) 6-heteroaryl purine and 7-
deazapurine ribonucleosides; (viii) 7-heteroaryl-7-deazaadenosines, their derivatives and analogues;
(ix) 4-heteroaryl fused 7-deazapurine nucleosides. In most cases various modifications of the lead
compound structure performed in order to obtain the most favorable activity and selectivity are briefly
discussed. The reviewed structure-activity relationship studies exemplify the search for compounds
with optimized antiviral, antitumor, antimycobacterial or antiparkinsonian action.