Nucleoside natural products and related analogs with potential therapeutic properties as antibacterial and antiviral agents

Nucleoside natural products possess a variety of interesting biological activities, including antibacterial, antiviral and antitumor properties, and are therefore expected to be potential candidates for developing drugs. Complex nucleoside natural products exhibiting antibacterial activity by specific inhibition of bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan biosynthesis are described. In addition to the class of antibacterial nucleoside natural products, the newest members of nucleoside natural products exhibiting interesting antiviral activity are briefly described. In spite of promising properties, no nucleoside natural products and their analogs are presently used in the clinic. A global structure-activity relationship of these classes of nucleoside natural products clearly indicates that it is very important to: i) modulate the cell entry ability; and ii) simplify hydrophilic core structures in order to reduce the size of molecules and stabilize the chemically labile structure.