Uracil Mustard (Not as tasty as regular mustard)

Uracil mustard is a mimic of the RNA component and DNA precursor uracil, and it also has a few reactive ends that can do some damage.

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Those chlorines amount to very reactive ends; the idea here is that they're hopefully a little better targeted than generally toxic molecules like the plain old nitrogen mustards. Hopefully, most of your cancer drug ends up in cancer cells, and targeting DNA bases (which they go through like crazy) has been a common strategy.

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I had an O-chem professor in undergrad whose job it was in his European homeland's army to "diffuse" old mustard gas. I guess they had a whole bunch left over from a war that needed disposing of. Fun job!!

By Vince Noir (not verified) on 10 Oct 2007 #permalink