Oligonucleotides constructed of 1',5'-anhydrohexitol nucleoside building blocks (hexitol nucleic acids, HNA) are completely stable towards 3'-exonuclease and form very stable self-complementary duplexes as well as sequence-selective stable duplexes with the natural DNA and RNA. Triple-helix formation has also been observed. These hybridisation characteristics are highly dependcnt on the base sequence and the experimental conKeywords antisense systems -DNA recognitionnucleic acids * oligonucleotides -RNA ditions. When using a phosphate buffer containing 0.1 M NaCI, a homopurine HNA dodecamer gives a ATm of + 1.3 ' C i base pair with DNA as complement and a ATm of +3.O0C/base pair with RNA as complement. These oligomers may therefore be of considerable interest as antisense constructs.

The synthesis of 1,5-anhydrohexitol nucleosides is described. These nucleoside analogues were obtained by alkylation of the heterocyclic bases with the tosylate 10 or by alkylation of the bases with the alcohol 12 under Mitsunobu conditions. The compounds were evaluated for antiviral and cytostatic activity. Highly selective activity against herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) was noted for 1,5-anhydro-2,3-dideoxy-2-(5-iodouracil-1-yl)-D-arabino-hexitol 4b at a concentration of 0.07 microgram/mL. This activity must be dependent on a specific phosphorylation by the virus-encoded thymidine kinase (TK), since compound 4b was inactive against TK-deficient mutants of HSV-1. The corresponding cytosine 4c and guanine 4e analogues showed activity against HSV-1, HSV-2, and other herpes viruses (i.e. cytomegalovirus, varicella-zoster virus) at concentrations well below the cytotoxicity threshold (2 and 20 micrograms/mL, respectively). At these concentrations, compounds 4c and 4e proved also inhibitory to the growth of human T-cells (i.e. MT-4, CEM, MOLT-4).

In view of the selective anti-HSV activity of 1,5-anhydro-2,3-dideoxy-2- (5-iodouracil-1-yl)-D-arabino-hexitol, a series of novel 1,5-anhydrohexitol nucleosides were synthesized and evaluated for their inhibitory activity against several viruses. The 5-iodouracil 3 and the 5-ethyluracil 4 derivatives are highly selective TK-dependent inhibitors of HSV-1 and HSV-2. Broad anti-herpes virus activity was noticed for 5-fluorocytosine 6 and 2,6-diaminopurine 10 analogues. From a transport study of 3, using the thymidine influx competition method, one can conclude that intracellular uptake of this compound most probably occurs by passive diffusion. X-ray analysis of compounds 3 and 9 showed that the heterocyclic base of 1,5-anhydrohexitol pyrimidine and purine is placed in the axial position and that the sugar ring adopts a slightly distorted chair conformation.

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