Fig. 3.
Mechanism of action of ribavirin on poliovirus 3Dpol. (A) Base pairing capability of ribavirin with cytidine and uridine. Based on the rotation of the bond between the 5-carbon heterocycle and the amide group, ribavirin is capable of base pairing with either uridine or cytidine. (B) Cartoon depiction of ribavirin incorporation and mutagenesis in resulting rounds of replication. Ribavirin can be incorporated at both cytidine and uridine-templated positions. When the ribavirin-containing strand is then used as a template, cytidine or uridine may be added against ribavirin-templated positions [74].
Panel (A): Adapted from S. Crotty, et al., The broad-spectrum antiviral ribonucleoside ribavirin is an RNA virus mutagen, Nat. Med. 6 (12) (2000) 1375–1379.