The Impact of Novel Purine, Pyrimidine and Folate Analogues on Cancer Treatment: A Review

The primary goal of this review is to highlight the anti-cancer activity of class of Anti-metabolites derivatives particularly emphasizing purine, pyrimidine and pteridine/folate antagonists as chemotherapeutic agents. The most of the anticancer agents contain heterocyclic moiety in their chemical structure, including purines, pyrimidine and pteridine/folate antagonists which is important in elucidating their mechanism of action and effectiveness against cancer. The etiology and statistical data explore the pivot role for designing drugs in chemotherapy. The derivatives categorized under anti-metabolites usually disrupt essential cellular processes by mimicking endogenous molecules. These agents interfere with DNA or RNA synthesis thereby causing cell death in rapidly dividing tumor cells. As per this present review study, the structure requirements for anti-tumor activity were analyzed through structure activity relationship that explores the pivot role for the synthesis of new purine, pyrimidine and pteridine based drugs in chemotherapy on cancer prevalence for the future benefit and this class of antimetabolites shows some prominent therapeutic properties both in vivo and in vitro, providing an additional rationale for its use in the maintenance therapy and also in the management of wide variety of disorders, predominantly cancer. In this review, we have also tabulated the clinical significance of purines, pyrimidines and folate-based drugs such as Thioguanine, Mercaptopurine, 5-Fluorouracil and Methotrexate against various cancer types, discussing their efficacy and impact on patient outcomes. In the context of anticancer therapy, this review provides a comprehensive summary about the substitution in the anti-metabolites drugs their synthesis has potential benefit in the medical and pharmaceutical aid.