Nucleosides and nucleotide analogues are artificially synthesized. Substances that have undergone certain chemical modifications can mimic nucleosides and nucleotides in vivo and participate in DNA or RNA synthesis. Because they cannot function normally, they can block cell division or virus replication. In addition to participating in nucleic acid composition, nucleosides and nucleotide analogues can also act on some important enzymes in the body to inhibit enzyme activity, such as human and virus polymerase (DNA-dependent DNA polymerase, RNA-dependent DNA polymerase or RNA-dependent RNA polymerase), kinase, nucleotide reductase, DNA methyltransferase, purine and pyrimidine nucleoside phosphorylase and thymidylate synthase. These mechanisms of action of nucleoside and nucleotide analogues have potential application value in inhibiting cancer cell growth, virus replication and treating other indications.
In order to integrate the data resources and results of many nucleosides drugs research and promote comparative research, literature review and information extraction analysis were carried out, thus a knowledge base of nucleoside drugs was constructed, which contained 553 pieces of information to assist the treatment of cancer and virus by nucleoside drugs. The database covers the drug name, structural formula, structure, catalogue name, CAS number, relative molecular weight, biological activity, target, pathway, solubility, concentration, reference titles and corresponding website sources. The interface supports query functions, such as "CAS registration number of drugs" and "structure". Therefore, the database of nucleoside drugs will be helpful to find new indications for cancer treatment besides the efficacy of nucleoside drugs themselves from the idea of "old drugs are used for new purposes".