Synthesis and biological evaluation of fluorinated acyclothionucleosides

The discovery of thio- and fluoro-nucleosides as antiviral or anticancer agents prompts us to explore the synthesis of acyclic analogues. In this paper is reported the preparation of acyclothionucleosides by the alkylation of nucleic bases with difluorothio-esters and -alcohols. Compounds structurally close to known antiviral agents were tested towards a large variety of viruses.