Chemical Diversification of Carbocyclic Fluorinated Pyrimidine Nucleosides: Introducing 2′-Arabino Analogues and Ring Unsaturation.

This article explores the development of new nucleoside analogues for treating viral infections and cancer. Specifically, it focuses on fluorinated carbocyclic systems, which have shown promise in medicinal and biological chemistry. The authors discuss the synthesis of various analogues with unsaturation and stereoinversion, as well as different reaction methods. The article also highlights the relevance of nucleoside analogues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of mRNA vaccines and antiviral medications. The researchers successfully synthesized a small library of fluorinated carbocyclic nucleoside analogues, achieving C2'-C3' unsaturation using Corey-Winter or Eastwood olefination. They also discovered an unusual C1'-C2' alkene scaffold as a side-product, enabling the synthesis of a 1',2'-didehydro 6'-fluorinated carbauridine and carbacytidine. NMR data was used to investigate the conformations of the analogues in solution, revealing that C2'-C3' unsaturation favored a 6'-endo envelope conformation. Biological evaluation of these nucleoside motifs is currently ongoing. [Extracted from the article]