Question
Is it NRTIs or NNRTIs that need to be transformed?
25 November 2010. Related: All topics.
Is it NNRTIs or NRTIs that need to be chemically transformed before is active and what is the enzyme to carry out this transformation?
Answer
I think you are asking about a process called phosphorylation.
This is where NRTIs (Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors, also called ‘nukes’) go through a process of being changed into the active part of the drug that will block HIV replication.
Nucleosides are changed (or metabolised) three times inside the cell to the monophosphate, then diphosphate, then triphosphate (acitve) from of the drug.
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