Edoxudine (or edoxudin) is an
antiviral drug. It is an analog of
thymidine
Thymidine (symbol dT or dThd), also known as deoxythymidine, deoxyribosylthymine, or thymine deoxyriboside, is a pyrimidine deoxynucleoside. Deoxythymidine is the DNA nucleoside T, which pairs with deoxyadenosine (A) in double-stranded DNA. ...
, a
nucleoside
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 nucleoti ...
.
It has shown effectiveness against
herpes simplex virus.
Synthesis
Mercuration of the 2'-deoxyuridine 1 leads to the organometallic derivative 2; reaction of that with ethylene in the presence dilithiopalladium tetrachloride gives the alkylation product 3; this is reduced catalytically in situ. There is thus obtained the antiviral agent edoxudine 4.
References
Pyrimidinediones
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