Fluorouracil (health) and viral probe (medicine)

Fluorouracil (health)

A much-used anticancer drug that belongs to the family of drugs called antimetabolites. Full name: 5-fluorouracil. Abbreviation: 5-FU. 5-FU is a pyrimidine antagonist. 5-FU is similar in structure to the pyrimidine base thymine and functions to inhibit DNA synthesis both by blocking the formation of normal pyrimidine nucleotides via both enzyme inhibition and by interfering with DNA synthesis after incorporation into a growing DNA molecule. 5-FU is also able to block the production of RNA and thereby induce cell death. 5-FU affects the processing of messenger RNA (mRNA), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), and small nuclear RNA (snRNA). 5-FU may also inhibit cell growth is through its ability to prevent the synthesis of thymine nucleotides from uracil nucleotides.

viral probe (medicine)

viral probe -->
nucleic acid probe

A nucleic acid fragment, labelled by a radioisotope, biotin, etc., that is complementary to a sequence in another nucleic acid (fragment) and that will, by hydrogen binding to the latter, locate or identify it and be detected; a diagnostic technique based on the fact that every species of microbe possesses some unique nucleic acid sequences which differentiate it from all others, and thus can be used as identifying markers or "fingerprints."

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