Purine Nucleosides and Analogues Bearing Chiral Substituents: Medicinal Chemistry and Therapeutic Perspective.

Adenosine and its analogues play an important role as bioregulators of metabolic processes in animal cells, affecting a variety of metabolic functions by acting through the purinergic signaling system. Synthesis and structure-activity relationship for some known purine nucleosides bearing chiral substituents are considered in this work. These compounds represent a promising potential as drug prototypes for targeted therapy of cancer, metabolic dysfunctions, and neuronal disorders due to their enhanced selectivity to receptors of the purinergic signaling system. Derivatives of adenosine and guanosine containing a chiral substituent also manifest antiviral activity.