How does hydroxyurea work?
DNA is inside all your cells. DNA is the basic building block of all living things, including the instructions to make more cells. HIV uses the DNA in your cells to make more HIV. DNA is made up of nucleotides. Hydroxyurea works by reducing the number of nucleotides inside cells, making it harder for HIV to make more viruses. In fact, hydroxyurea reduces the amount of one particular type of nucleotide, called adenine. When hydroxyurea is used alone it doesn’t affect HIV very much. HIV still has enough adenine nucleotides to choose from to build its DNA and make more HIV. This is where other anti-HIV drugs come into the picture. The nucleoside analog anti-HIV drugs — AZT, ddI, ddC, d4T, and 3TC — block HIV by acting as fake nucleotides. ddI (Videx) acts as a fake adenine nucleotide. When hydroxyurea is taken with ddI, fewer natural adenine nucleotides are left in the cell for HIV to steal when making DNA. With fewer adenine nucleotides, it becomes more likely that HIV will use the fak
