Function
These agents can be used against hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, herpes simplex, and HIV. Once they are phosphorylated, they work as antimetabolites by being similar enough to nucleotides to be incorporated into growing DNA strands; but they act as chain terminators and stop viral DNA Polymerase. They are not specific to viral DNA and also affect mitochondrial DNA. Because of this they have side effects such as bone marrow suppression.
There is a large family of nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors, because DNA production by reverse transcriptase is very different from normal human DNA replication, so it is possible to design nucleoside analogues that are preferentially incorporated by the former. Some nucleoside analogues, however, can function both as NRTIs and polymerase inhibitors for other viruses (e.g., hepatitis B). Less selective nucleoside analogues are used as chemotherapy agents to treat cancer.
Read more about this topic: Nucleoside Analogue
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)
“The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.”
—Leonardo Da Vinci (1425–1519)
“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)