Arabinosyl nucleosides are derivatives of the

nucleosides Nucleosides are glycosylamines that can be thought of as nucleotides without a phosphate group. A nucleoside consists simply of a nucleobase (also termed a nitrogenous base) and a five-carbon sugar (ribose or 2'-deoxyribose) whereas a nucleotide ...

. They contain – in contrast to most nucleosides – instead of the β-D-Ribofuranose the β-D-Arabinofuranose. They are mostly used as

cytostatics Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

or virostatics.

Examples

File:Cytarabin.svg,

Cytarabine Cytarabine, also known as cytosine arabinoside (ara-C), is a chemotherapy medication used to treat acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It is given by in ...

File:Vidarabine.svg,

Vidarabine Vidarabine or 9-β-D-arabinofuranosyladenine (ara-A) is an antiviral drug which is active against herpes simplex and varicella zoster viruses. Discovery In the 1950s two nucleosides were isolated from the Caribbean sea sponge, sponge ''Tethya c ...

File:Nelarabine structure.svg,

Nelarabine Nelarabine, sold under the brand names Arranon (US) and Atriance (EU), is a chemotherapy medication used for the treatment of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL). Nelarabine is a prodrug of arab ...

File:Fludarabine.svg,

Fludarabine Fludarabine is a purine analogue and antineoplastic agent. It is generally used as its 5-O-phosphorylated form known as fludarabine phosphate, sold under the brand name Fludara among others. It is a chemotherapy medication used in the treatmen ...

File:Clofarabine.svg,

Clofarabine Clofarabine is a purine nucleoside antimetabolite marketed in the United States and Canada as Clolar. In Europe and Australia/New Zealand the product is marketed under the name Evoltra. It is FDA-approved for treating relapsed or refractory acute ...

File:Sorivudine.svg,

Sorivudine Sorivudine (INN), is a nucleoside analogue antiviral drug, marketed under trade names such as Usevir ( Nippon Shoji, Eisai) and Brovavir (BMS). It is used for the treatment of varicella zoster virus infections. Pharmacology Feature * First-line ...

File:Clevudine Formulae.png, Clevudine

Literature

* W. E. Müller: "Rational design of arabinosyl nucleosides as antitumor and antiviral agents", Jpn J Antibiot. 1977 Dec;30 Suppl:104–120; . * {{Organic-chem-stub