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Abacavir is a carbocyclic synthetic nucleoside analogue and an antiviral agent. Intracellularly, abacavir is converted by cellular enzymes to the active metabolite carbovir triphosphate, an analogue of deoxyguanosine-5'-triphosphate (dGTP). Carbovir triphosphate inhibits the activity of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) both by competing with the natural substrate dGTP and by its incorporation into viral DNA. Viral DNA growth is terminated because the incorporated nucleotide lacks a 3'-OH group, which is needed to form the 5′ to 3′ phosphodiester linkage essential for DNA chain elongation.
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