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Cytarabine or cytosine arabinoside (Cytosar-U or Depocyt) is a chemotherapy agent used mainly in the treatment of cancers of white blood cells such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.〔 〕 It is also known as ara-C (arabinofuranosyl cytidine). It kills cancer cells by interfering with DNA synthesis. It is called cytosine arabinoside because it combines a cytosine base with an arabinose sugar. Cytosine normally combines with a different sugar, deoxyribose, to form deoxycytidine, a component of DNA. Certain sponges, where it was originally found, use arabinoside sugars to form a different compound (not part of DNA). Cytosine arabinoside is similar enough to human cytosine deoxyribose (deoxycytidine) to be incorporated into human DNA, but different enough that it kills the cell. This mechanism is used to kill cancer cells. Cytarabine is the first of a series of cancer drugs that altered the sugar component of nucleosides. Other cancer drugs modify the base.〔 〕 It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, a list of the most important medication needed in a basic health system. ==Medical uses== Cytarabine is mainly used in the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia, acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL) and in lymphomas, where it is the backbone of induction chemotherapy. Cytarabine also possesses antiviral activity, and it has been used for the treatment of generalised herpesvirus infection. However, cytarabine is not very selective in this setting and causes bone marrow suppression and other severe side effects. Therefore, ara-C is not a useful antiviral agent in humans because of its toxic profile and actually it is used mainly for the chemotherapy of hematologic cancers. Cytarabine is also used in the study of the nervous system to control the proliferation of glial cells in cultures, the amount of glial cells having an important impact on neurons. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「cytarabine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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