Role of Hydroxymethyl Group as a New Hydrophilic 4'-Pocket in 5'-Norcarbocyclic Nucleoside Analogues

Abstract

Steric and electronic parameters of 4'-substituents play significant roles in steering the conformation of nucleoside analogues. In order to investigate the relationship of 4'-group with antiviral enhancement, novel 4'-hydroxymethyl-5'-norcarbocyclic adenosine phosphonic acid analogues were designed and synthesized from 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane-4-ethanol (5) using reiterative Grignard addition and ring-closing metathesis (RCM) as key reactions. The synthesized adenosine phosphonic acids analogues (22) and (23) were subjected to antiviral screening against HIV-1. Compound (23) exhibited moderate anti-HIV activity (EC50 = 8.61 μM) in the CEM cell line.