He Miao, Xuehong Chen and Yepeng Luan* Pages 5562 - 5582 ( 21 )
Gemcitabine as a pyrimidine nucleoside analog anticancer drug has high efficacy for a broad spectrum of solid tumors. Gemcitabine is activated within tumor cells by sequential phosphorylation carried out by deoxycytidine kinase to mono-, di-, and triphosphate nucleotides with the last one as the active form. But the instability, drug resistance and toxicity severely limited its utilization in clinics. In the field of medicinal chemistry, prodrugs have proven to be a very effective means for elevating drug stability and decrease undesirable side effects including the nucleoside anticancer drug such as gemcitabine. Many works have been accomplished in design and synthesis of gemcitabine prodrugs, majority of which were summarized in this review.
Gemcitabine, prodrug, amide, ester, derivative, anticancer.
Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Qingdao University, Shandong Province, Qingdao, Department of Pharmacology, College of Basic Medicine, Qingdao University, Shandong Province, Qingdao, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Qingdao University, Shandong Province, Qingdao