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antimetabolite

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antimetabolite: see metabolite metabolite, organic compound that is a starting material in, an intermediate in, or an end product of metabolism . Starting materials are substances, usually small and of simple structure, absorbed by the organism as food.
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antimetabolite

Substance that competes with, replaces, or inhibits a specific compound within a cell, whose functioning is thereby disrupted. Because its structure resembles the compound's, it is taken up by the cell, but it does not react in the same way with the enzyme that acts on the usual compound. It may inhibit the enzyme or be converted into an aberrant chemical. Many antimetabolites are useful in treating disease, including sulfa drugs, which disrupt bacterial but not human metabolism for bacterial diseases, and others (e.g., methotrexate, 5-fluorouracil) for various cancers.


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Certain conventional chemotherapies, such as the antimetabolite gemcitabine, exert their anticancer activity at the S-phase of the cell cycle.
Surgeons began to find success with purine antimetabolites and with antilymphocytic globulin, developed by an upstart ex-football player named John Najarian.
He starts with Paul Ehrlich's antitreponemal arsenicals and ends with the antisense agents now in early clinical trials for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer, covering in the process the development of antibacterial and antiviral agents, vaccines, antimetabolites, and hormone-based antineoplastic agents.
 
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