Synthesis of tritium‐labelled 3′‐azido‐3′‐deoxythymidine

New approaches to the synthesis of 3′‐azido‐3′‐deoxythymidine labelled with tritium in the heterocyclic base have been developed. With this aim, enzymatic transribosylation with [ 3 H]thymine using the enzyme preparation from rat liver and a three‐step chemical synthesis with use of the tritium labelled precursor were studies. The enzyme preparation did not catalyse the transfer of the 3′‐azido‐3′‐deoxyribosyl fragment to the [ 3 H]thymine residue. 5′‐ O ‐Benzoyl‐2,3′‐anhydrothymidine was taken as a precursor for the tritium labelling by the chemical methods. The resulting [ 3 H]3′‐azido‐3′‐deoxythymidine was obtained with a specific radioactivity of 18.3 Ci/mmol, the tritium is located in the C‐6 position of the thymine residue. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.