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Emtricitabine


Mechanism of action:

Emtricitabine is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor and a cytidine analogue. After entering the cell, it is phosphorylated by host cell enzymes into the active form, emtricitabine triphosphate. This active metabolite competes with dCTP (deoxycytidine triphosphate) and may be mistakenly incorporated into the growing viral DNA strand by HIV reverse transcriptase, causing DNA chain termination and preventing the virus from completing reverse transcription and subsequent replication.

Reference(s):

1. Shockcor JP et al. (1996). HPLC-NMR identification of the human urinary metabolites of (−)-cis-5-fluoro-1-[2-(hydroxymethyl)-1,3-oxathiolan-5-yl] cytosine, a nucleoside analogue active against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Xenobiotica. 


2. Valade E et al. (2014). Population pharmacokinetics of emtricitabine in HIV-1-infected adult patients. Antimicrob Agents Chemother.

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