Received: 19 April 2017 Revised: 26 July 2017 Accepted: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1002/med.21465 REVIEW ARTICLE Pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine (7-deazapurine) as a privileged scaffold in design of antitumor and antiviral nucleosides Pavla Perlíková1 Michal Hocek1,2 1Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochem- istry, Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ-16610, Abstract Prague 6, Czech Republic 7-Deazapurine (pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine) nucleosides are important 2Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of analogues of biogenic purine nucleosides with diverse biological Science, Charles University in Prague, CZ-12843, activities. Replacement of the N7 atom with a carbon atom makes Prague 2, Czech Republic the five-membered ring more electron rich and brings a possibility of Correspondence attaching additional substituents at the C7 position. This often leads Michal Hocek, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, to derivatives with increased base-pairing in DNA or RNA or bet- Flemingovo nam. 2, CZ-16610 Prague 6, Czech ter binding to enzymes. Several types of 7-deazapurine nucleosides Republic. with potent cytostatic or cytotoxic effects have been identified. The Email:
[email protected] most promising are 7-hetaryl-7-deazaadenosines, which are acti- vated in cancer cells by phosphorylation and get incorporated both to RNA (causing inhibition of proteosynthesis) and to DNA (caus- ing DNA damage). Mechanism of action of other types of cytostatic nucleosides, 6-hetaryl-7-deazapurine and thieno-fused deazapurine ribonucleosides, is not yet known. Many 7-deazaadenosine deriva- tives are potent inhibitors of adenosine kinases. Many types of sugar- modified derivatives of 7-deazapurine nucleosides are also strong antivirals.