Description

Cladribine is a purine nucleoside antimetabolite analogue. Cladribine triphosphate (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/triphosphate) , a phosphorylated metabolite of cladribine , incorporates into DNA, resulting in single-strand breaks in DNA, depletion of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/nicotinamide%20adenine%20dinucleotide) ( NAD (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/NAD) ) and adenosine triphosphate (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/adenosine%20triphosphate) ( ATP (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/ATP) ), and apoptosis. Because this agent is resistant to adenosine (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/adenosine) deaminase, an enzyme that inactivates some antineoplastic agents, it is selectively toxic to lymphocytes and monocytes which exhibit little deoxynucleotide deaminase activity.