Sugar-modified nucleosides in past 10 years, a review

In the search for effective, selective, and nontoxic antiviral and antitumour agents, a variety of strategies have been devised to design nucleoside analogs. These strategies have involved several formal modifications of the naturally occurring nucleosides, especially, alteration of the carbohydrate moiety. Since the naturally occurring purine nucleoside analog oxetanocin A and its derivatives have been found to be effective as anti-HIV-1 and anti-herpes virus agents in 1986, the syntheses of different types of sugar-modified nucleoside analogs have been reported. In this review we will give an overview of the sugar-modified nucleosides synthesized since the late 1990 according to their structural types along with the synthetic routes of some selected nucleosides.