Further evidence is presented (8) that changes in optical rotation at the D-line of sodium which occur with changes in solvent largely reflect changes in conformational equilibria.Changes in the nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum of 4,4,5,5-tetradeuterio-2-methoxytetrahydropyran and in the rotation of s(+)-2-methoxytetrahydropyran with changes in solvent are interpreted to show that solvents capable of donating a hydrogen to a hydrogen bond have an effect on the magnitude of the anomeric effect which is greater than that resulting from the change in the dielectric constant of the solvent. In the case of methyl 2-deoxypyranosides with the methoxy group in axial orientation, water appears to have an especially profound influence in stabilizing that orientation of the methyl group which brings it into garrche relationship with both the C2-grouping and the anomeric hydrogen; that is, counter to the anomeric effect.The methyl 2-deoxy-e-L-erythro-pentopyranoside was synthesized from di-0-acetyl-L-arabinal by way of an iodomethoxylation. Deuterolysis of the resulting 1,2-trans-acetylated methyl 2-deoxy-2-iodopentosides is shown to proceed in one case with extensive inversion of configuration and with extensive retention in the other case and offers a route to the preparation of 2-deoxy-2-deuterio-erythropentose with a high proportion (> 75%) of the diastereoisomer with the arabino-configuration.

Treatment with antimetabolites results in chemically induced low nucleoside triphosphate pools and cell cycle arrest in exponentially growing cells. Since steady-state levels of hepatitis C virus (HCV) replicon RNA were shown to be dependent on exponential growth of Huh-7 cells, the effects of antimetabolites for several nucleoside biosynthesis pathways on cell growth and HCV RNA levels were investigated. A specific anti-HCV replicon effect was defined as (i) minimal interference with the exponential cell growth, (ii) minimal reduction in cellular host RNA levels, and (iii) reduction of the HCV RNA copy number per cell compared to that of the untreated control. While most antimetabolites caused a cytostatic effect on cell growth, only inhibitors of the de novo pyrimidine ribonucleoside biosynthesis mimicked observations seen in confluent replicon cells, i.e., cytostasis combined with a sharp decrease in replicon copy number per cell. These results suggest that high levels of CTP and UTP are critical parameters for maintaining the steady-state level replication of HCV replicon in Huh-7 cells.Despite the availability of infectious cDNA clones of the hepatitis C virus (HCV), efficient in vitro replication has not been observed (3). After transfection of subgenomic HCV RNA replicons that also express the neomycin phosphotransferase gene selection marker, HCV replication has been reported previously in the human hepatoma cell line Huh-7 (2, 21). Such HCV replicon-harboring cell lines could be cultivated for more than a year without signs of cytopathogenicity (26). High levels of HCV RNAs can be maintained in cells passaged under continuous selection with G418. In addition, high-level replication was reflected in the observed adaptations of the HCV replicon to the host cell (20).A tight coupling of the amount of intracellular HCV RNA and cell growth was observed. High levels of viral RNA were found in exponentially growing cells, but this was followed by a sharp decline in RNA levels when cells reached a confluent state (26,29). This suggests that cellular factors required for RNA replication and/or translation vary in abundance and become limited in resting cells. Several proteins have been suggested, but none of them has as yet been positively identified to be directly responsible (9,15,16,19,25,30). However, there are no reports in which the availability of the cellular nucleoside triphosphate pools were linked to the loss of steadystate level replication of HCV replicon RNA in confluent cells. It is well-known that confluent cells mainly depend on salvage nucleoside biosynthetic pathways, resulting in lowered concentrations of endogenous nucleoside pools. As most antimetabolite agents of the de novo nucleoside biosynthesis are known to chemically deplete nucleoside pools and induce a concentration-dependent cytostasis, evaluating these compounds against HCV replicon can shed light on the relationship between nucleoside pools and replicon dynamics. However, before doing so, a definition of specificity of antiviral ...

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Potential antiviral nucleoside analogs 1-fl-D-arabinofuranosylthymine, the 1-(2-deoxy-2-fluoro-,8-D-arabinofuranosyl)-nucleosides of -5-methyluracil, -5-iodouracil, -5-methylcytosine, -5-iodocytosine, and -E-5-(2-bromovinyl)uracil, E-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine, E-5-(2-bromovinyl)-l-,8-D-arabinofuranosyluracil, and 9-(2-hydroxyethyoxymethyl)guanine were studied to compare their phosphorylation rates relative to thymidine by purified thymidine kinases from human and herpes simplex virus sources. Most of these analogs are capable of being phosphorylated by both human and viral enzymes. On the assumption that inhibition constants (Ki) reflect binding affinity, Ki values were determined for these analogs with the same thymidine kinases. In general, these analogs have a greater affinity for the viral enzymes. The amount of the analogs phosphorylated to the monophosphate form, which is presumably necessary to produce cytotoxic effects, was determined by the combined effects of phosphorylation rates and binding affinities. All of these analogs act as preferential substrates for the viral thymidine kinases at low concentrations, which may be one of the main reasons for their selective antiviral action.