Focusing on the recent literature (since 2000), this review outlines the main synthetic approaches for the preparation of 5'-mono-, 5'-di-, and 5'-triphosphorylated nucleosides, also known as nucleotides, as well as several derivatives, namely, cyclic nucleotides and dinucleotides, dinucleoside 5',5'-polyphosphates, sugar nucleotides, and nucleolipids. Endogenous nucleotides and their analogues can be obtained enzymatically, which is often restricted to natural substrates, or chemically. In chemical synthesis, protected or unprotected nucleosides can be used as the starting material, depending on the nature of the reagents selected from P(III) or P(V) species. Both solution-phase and solid-support syntheses have been developed and are reported here. Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted in this field, further work is required because chemists are still faced with the challenge of developing a universal methodology that is compatible with a large variety of nucleoside analogues.

This review depicts in vitro and in vivo results obtained with nucleotide prodrugs (pronucleotides) bearing S-acyl-2-thioethyl (SATE) groups as esterase-labile phosphate protections. New developments are illustrated by the design of mononucleoside mixed phosphoester derivatives leading to the selective intracellular delivery of the corresponding 5'-mononucleotide through two different enzyme-mediated activation steps.